I am a planner. One of my favorite phrases is "Plan your Work, Work your Plan". So, you can imagine my struggle when I started taking a class based upon the book "A Course in Miracles" from Foundation For Inner Peace and transcribed by Helen Schucman and William Thetford. A Course in Miracles includes statements such as "A healed mind is relieved of the belief that it must plan, although it cannot know the outcome which is best, the means by which it is achieved, nor how to recognize the problem that the plan is made to solve." and "Try not to shape this day as you believe would benefit you most. For you cannot conceive of all the happiness that comes to you without your planning."
Happiness without planning, this is crazy talk, right? While I'm taking this class I am also a part of a 60 day challenge at the gym. I'm using exercise, good food choices and visualization techniques to be successful. I am reading Louise L. Hay's book "You Can Heal Your Life" which uses Affirmation and Visualization to find success with your overall health. I am a life coach that uses goal setting as a part of my work. And yet...here I am reading and taking a class that says "You will also recognize that many of your goals are contradictory, that you have no unified outcome in mind, and that you must experience disappointment in connection with some of your goals, however the situation turns out".
This leaves me at a crossroads...How does a planner move forward without a plan? Of course, I began researching and found some good information and then by happenstance I was listening to a Deepak Chopra meditation and he said "Set your intention, take whatever action is inspired and relinquish your attachment to the result". Now, this may be just the road to consider. I can still set a plan or intention, I can find my inspiration in that intention and then I need to release the idea of my ideal outcome. The visualization can come in the form of the journey. As it has been said, Life is in the journey not in the destination.
Are you a planner? Can you imagine not visualizing the result of those plans? Do you ever notice that most plans change and evolve without your input?
One of my plans was to wait to volunteer at our new church. I wanted to give myself a year to acclimate and after a lifetime of volunteering I wanted to catch my breath and see what was the best fit. That was the plan, but the plan was about to change.
One Saturday night I had a dream. I was in a Sunday school classroom teaching middle schoolers, it was a very specific dream and I woke up knowing this dream as if it had happened in my life. I couldn't shake the dream and wrote about it in my morning pages, I reviewed it in my mind while on the treadmill, in Pilates class and in the pool at the gym. After the gym my husband and I headed to church. The dream remained with me. Then I sat down, opened the bulletin and as you have probably already guessed, I read: "Needed 6th grade Sunday School Teacher." All of the pieces of the dream were coming true in front of me. So, needless to say I am now a Middle School Sunday School Teacher. Having always taught young children this is a new experience for me - one that I believe God set before me for a reason. My plans didn't matter. It didn't matter that I was more comfortable with young children or that I don't have kids in the youth program. It didn't matter that I wanted to wait. The plan was set.
So, as I move into this new territory of setting only an intention, I need to release the need for the result that I am expecting and that I have determined in my mind to be the best possible conclusion. I am reminded of another quote from Deepak Chopra "When you hold onto your desire with limited awareness of who you really are, you prevent the infinite organizing powers of the universe of bringing it to fruition. It is like wanting to use the wind to fly a kite but being unwilling to let go of the string?"
For me, it is time to let go of the string gently and slowly, until I have allowed my true self to emerge. By doing so, opportunities will come my way naturally.
What about you? Are you ready to allow yourself the freedom in your life to release the tension on the string?
Wishing you Grace, Peace & Healthy Living,
Lorraine
