book review: Manifesting Change by Mike Dooley

I’m a subscriber to Notes from the Universe (which, if you aren’t, you should be and can sign up here) and the notes are always these wonderfully peaceful and inspirational thoughts. So I wanted to read more from Mike Dooley, the man who writes them.

I also want to shift some things in my life right now, and I’m open to all kinds of methods. I’ve tried coaching, I’ve tried therapy, I’ve tried working my butt off, I’ve tried crowdsourcing… and while each method has brought more into my life and helped me along the way, I’m always fascinated by a new way of looking at things. So I picked up Manifesting Change: It Couldn't Be Easier. (Appealing title, no?)

At the heart of the book are these instructions:
1. Identify your end destination
2. Move in that direction
3. Let the universe figure out the rest for you.


Like he said, it can’t be easier.

There are, however, a few things you should be aware of as you embark down the manifesting path. First, you want to identify your end destination in vague but specific terms. “I am blissfully happy in a relationship with a man” instead of “I am blissfully happy in a relationship with Fred.” “I have the job of my dreams that brings me wealth and meaningful work” instead of “I have the VP of Sales position at JPMorgan that makes me $1 million a year.” The argument here is that the more you narrow down the options for what will make you happy, the harder the universe is going to have to work to put all the right pieces together to make it happen.

Second, you must move in the direction of your joy. It’s not enough to identify your end result and visualize 24 hours a day and never get off the couch. If you’re looking for a job, you must visualize, identify how you want to feel in your job, and maybe some specifics around how much you want to make or how meaningful your contribution is, and then you must go out there and, as Dooley calls it, “knock on some doors.”

[Sidenote: a friend once told me about how she had completely given up on dating and her mother told her that she can’t just give up. That love “doesn’t just walk up to your door and knock.” The next day, the refrigerator repair man walked up and knocked on the door and they’ve been married for 10 years. It’s probably easier, however, to be out in the world of people if you want to meet your soulmate.]

And then the third part is the most challenging part for me – step back, and let the universe drive for you. The more I read this book, the more I realized how much of a control freak I am, always trying to control when I’m dating, what kind of work I do, how much of an impact I have on the world around me. So I’m practicing letting go and, in the proverbial 12 step language, letting god. I’ve turned it over to the universe, so watch out! I’ll probably be married before the R train goes back through the tunnel!

on trust and independence

I've been thinking about trust a lot lately and was surfing the internet to see if anyone else had crystallized the link between independence and trust that is starting to form in my brain.  My search results were mostly banks and insurance companies and (unfortunately) not usable quotes or nuggets of genius, so I was disappointed.  But the more I thought about it, the more that actually made perfect sense.

As I see it, there is an inverse relationship between trust and independence.  The more independent I am, the less I have to trust others.  And the less I have to trust others, the more independent I am.  This may be exactly what the banks and insurance companies have already realized -- people want trust AND independence.  They want to be able to trust when they need to, but to stay independent when they don't.  Because trusting other people is risky, and independence, while lonely, means never getting your heart broken.

I think of trust like climbing up a tree -- I only climb as high as the branches where I know that when I jump, I'll land on my feet.  Which is to say, I only trust people as far as I can take care of myself.  So it's not really trusting them much at all.  Asking someone to be there for you when you can, in all reality, take care of yourself is like a safety net over an air cushion -- nice, but extra.  I've gotten so good at taking care of myself that I can climb pretty high up in the tree, so I may seem really trusting, but when it comes to the moment of faith, I nestle one branch below or leave the tree entirely.

The problem is, I don't think this is working.

In my effort to be self-reliant, I have atrophied my trust muscles.  Out of a fear of being too needy, I have choked off my ability to effectively need others at all.  And this is sending mixed signals -- "I trust you, but I don't need you."  

I don't have a quick solution to this situation.  But I am slowly finding ways of trusting other people, and scaling back my own need and willingness to take care of everything myself.  Which, in and of itself, is a step towards trust.

don't give up!

I know I've written a lot lately about goals, and reaching for what you want, and all that good stuff, so I thought I'd share with you part of an article on motivation that I got from another savvy coach, Nancy Fox. (Visit her at www.thebusinessfox.com) The whole article is more in-depth, but the part that resonated most with me broke down the stages of decision-making:

1. "Action/Decision - you take some new action or make a decision
2. Relief/Excitement - this provides relief or excitement - You look forward to the new.
3. Doubt - the relief or excitement is short-lived. Doubt for your decision or about your action sets in.
4. Fear/Overwhelm - Doubt is immediately followed by fear or a feeling of being overwhelmed.
5. Remorse/Regret - You begin to regret your choice or action. (This is what is commonly known as "buyers remorse.")
6. Projecting Blame - You immediately start seeking who you might blame for the feeling of remorse. You see it as a force outside of yourself. Ex. Your partner was a bad guy anyway, your boss never told you what he/she really expected, etc.
7. Seeking Shelter/Safety - Here's where you want to pull back or go back to old familiar ways. Ex. You want to stay in your current job vs. making a change to one with greater potential.
8. Relief - You feel a short-lived sense of relief.
9. Lowered self-esteem - Right below relief is an experience of lowered self-esteem because you have not made a decision from a powerful stance but from a fearful one."

I love the way this breaks down because I can see myself in every one of those steps. (I've gotten a lot better about #6, though!) I've definitely made decisions, gotten excited, doubted, gotten scared, and started to change my mind. For me, the "seeking shelter/safety" is extra powerful, because it leads to that blessed, almost instantaneous relief of not having to do anything.

However...

When the change is important to me, I build in safeguards to ward off steps 5, 6, and 7, and therefore avoid steps 8 and 9 all together.

Nancy's suggestions for safeguards are the following:

1. "Accepting Full Responsibility - for your situation and for your results. No excuses. Gives you a huge sense of power.
2. Adopting A Can Do Mindset - Listen to your language. Are you telling yourself it can be done, or it can't? Either way you'll be right. Your choice.
3. Trusting - In yourself and your ability to generate the right results.
4. Seeking Support - Hang around with supportive people, hang with the winners.
5. Positive People, Positive Life - self explanatory.
6. Daily Consistent Actions - Put the right structures, right routines in place and adhere to them as if they are the law - your law.
7. Focus on your WHY - By focusing on your real purpose, why you took the action, you will be motivated to stick to it."

I think these suggestions are spot on, and will affect different people in different ways. For example, #4 is crucial for me -- I'm a talker. And I can talk myself out of fear just as easily as I can talk myself into it. So combining supportive people with consistent, daily actions, often helps me overcome my fear in a plow-ahead-like-a-freight-train kind of way. Sure, it's scary, but if I do #7 and ramp up #3 (possibly via #2 and #1), I can make it through.

trust

I'm a very trusting person. (Of everyone else, that is. Not of myself.)

I can meet someone and instantaneously trust them. And I do. All the time. And for the most part, I've been lucky, meeting good, decent people who are worthy of my trust. But it seems like it's getting to a point where I trust other people more than I trust myself.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, as people have come and gone in my life. People who I have trusted as if, in some way, they have the answers that I don't. And if I trust these people, or follow their advice, or live my life in a way that they would approve of, then they're in charge, and I'm no longer responsible for whatever shortcomings I have in life. As if they know the route better, and I can relax and just enjoy the ride.

But what's funny is when I do that, I end up somewhere other than where I wanted to be.

This kind of trust, this belief that other people know what's right for me, what my inner truth is, is in fact, a huge betrayal of myself. It's almost as if I'm saying, "Hey Kate, your plans and your wants must suck, because look at all these other people, who know how you should be living your life differently --they clearly have the inside scoop!"

Athol Fugard wrote a beautiful monologue in The Road to Mecca, (which someone may or may not have auditioned with when she was acting) and it closes with this: "You know what the really big word is, Helen? I had it all wrong. I suppose like most people I used to think it was Love. Thats a big word all right, and quite an event when it comes along. But there's an even bigger word. Trust. And more dangerous. Because that's when you drop your defenses, lay yourself wide open, and if you've made a mistake, you're in big, big trouble. And it hurts like hell." It speaks to me mostly because I've been there before, trusting someone to take care of me, to be responsible for me, and in the end, letting me down simply because that's not their job.

I am so not a religious person, but the Rev. Kim K. Crawford Harvie has written an AMAZING sermon on trust. She says, "The more highly developed our trust yourself voice, the better prepared we are to trust the world, or to trust it again. The strength of our capacity to trust ourselves is the reserve on which we draw when the world betrays us. And the capacity to trust ourselves is the bedrock of our trustworthiness to others."

But what about the areas in which we know we're untrustworthy? Is the answer then to only listen to parts of yourself? To listen to those voices that you respect? Or to hear the other voices, but not let them drive? I want to live a life I'm proud of, and make decisions for myself that not only do those close to me respect, but that, more importantly, I can trust.

"In our inner world, we can cultivate a sanctuary of courage and strength. It is from within that sanctuary that we cast our lot with the world, whatever hand the world deals us. The trick here, though -- and it's a good one --is not to harden our hearts, not to make of our sanctuary an armored vehicle, or a prison," says Harvie.

And I think I can get on board with that -- finding a way to curb, but not destroy the voice coming from the needier and more desperate sides of myself. Be careful, be selective about what I listen to, what I believe and what I trust about myself. Make more choices to be strong, to opt for the clearest future I can make for myself.

I won't be my best self until I make the choice(s) to become her.

Rev. Crawford Harvie also refers to Rumi (which is actually how I found her in the first place), and the poem below really speaks to me right now, to not selling myself short, and to finding out how to trust the woman I want to become.

There is a life-force within your soul.
Seek that life.
There is a gem in the mountain of your body.
Seek that mine.
O traveler, if you are in search of That
Don't look outside.
Look inside yourself .