How Many Workshops Does It Take To Learn To Screw In A Lightbulb?

A friend called me yesterday with a very good question. "If I am trying to make my life better - watching whether what I say is positive or negative, behaving in such a way that the universe knows I'm serious about wanting change - how do I know when I'm being simply impractical?"

Forget "good" question...great question!

My friend was feeling scared because she - like me - is making her way out of traditional jobs and taking a flying leap into working for herself. In the meanwhile, she is living off of savings. To make matters more challenging, she is a single mom. So, she wanted to know when to pay attention to her fear, and when to challenge it.

She was asking the right person! I have dealt with fear for many years; for many, it incapacitated me. But now I think I know a little bit more about it. Just a little. Fear is a canny opponent; it knows how to disguise itself as "conce
", "insight" and "intuition". I even had a boyfriend once - quite possibly the gentlest human being on the planet - and I was terrified of him for a brief time there because I could swear (and I did swear) that there was "something dark" about him. The only dark thing about this man was the fear I was projecting on him because I was afraid of being involved with him.

Crikey!

So I told my friend that there is an old Jewish expression: From strength to strength. This means that you don't jump when you feel uncertain, or weak. You wait until you feel sure. If you take a well-considered leap of faith that then brings up fear - well, big surprise! That's why they call them leaps of faith, rather than something more reassuring and slow-moving. So, are you taking the next logical step in a planned progression? Or are you taking a leap that requires some sacrifice that you feel uncertain about? You have to make that determination. But here's the good news: you can't lose.

Let's say you pass up one opportunity because of fear, and in this case it turns out that your decision was based on fear of leaping, rather than the warning-sign kind of fear. Guess what...if you keep moving forward instead of stopping dead in your tracks (as I have done in the past so often) and mou
ing what you have missed, that opportunity or another like it will come rushing up to you another time, if you still want it. As another friend said to me once, "Opportunities that are yours, are yours. They're not capricious little things rushing past you to leap at whoever will catch them." The catch is that you have to keep pursuing it.

And as for the question of how you "show" the universe that you're serious about changing, well, I was listening to one of Mike Dooley's Infinite Possibilities tapes the other day in which he spoke about this. He said (and I paraphrase) that you don't impoverish yourself to prove your faith, your efforts, your seriousness. What you do instead is (and I quote), "Do what you can." Amen!

This changing-your-life stuff takes times, attention, enthusiasm, assistance, groundedness, compassion for ourselves, etc., etc., etc.! We are turning a 30-, 40-, 50-, 60-year boat around.

How many workshops does it take to turn our lives around? Maybe only one - maybe 20. But it takes our simple commitment to our path, and patience with ourselves. Use the tools the workshops offer - the visualization, the affirmation statements and all the rest - and keep moving forward.

See you on the path!