MOLLIE PLAYER
FEATS OF GREAT STRENGTH
Angels, guides, God and all there is:
Help me find within myself the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change,
the things I can change that aren’t changed yet,
the things I can change that I think I can’t change,
the things I knew I could change but didn’t,
and the things that I can and will change later . . .
and the wisdom to see that there is no difference.
This self-help success story was contributed by Jenny Thorne.
Readers of Eckhart Tolle understand the importance of appreciating the present moment–paying attention as much as possible to the glorious Now and leaving the past behind us. For a long time, though, I was stumped by something: How am I supposed to live in the present and also allow myself to feel the desires that lead to conscious creation?
What about visualization? What about mantras? What about figuring out what I don’t want so that I can decide what I do want to welcome into my life?
Then the other day, a good friend talked to me about the importance of acceptance.
“Life is perfect, just as it is,” she said. “You don’t have to want a single new thing to be happy.”
And I knew it was true, because she has four young children and she manages it all amazingly well.
So, the following day, I took her advice. I started a new spiritual practice: that of accepting everything that came.
“Bring it on, Universe,” I said. “Do your worst. I’m going to learn to love what is if it kills me.”
And it was the greatest experience. That day I happened to spend most of the sunny afternoon at a park with my two wonderful children. Then that evening I was treated to a massage and a facial. I truly enjoyed these experiences in a way I have rarely done before, without fault-finding and overly critical thinking and too-high expectations.
It was wonderful.
I’m pretty sure the Universe wanted me to have an especially good first try at all this acceptance stuff, because over the following few days things got back to normal. Kids crying till my ears hurt, poopy diapers . . . you get the idea.
But I continued my new-found spiritual practice, and what I noticed right away was that none of the bad stuff seemed all that bad anymore. Because they weren’t that bad. They were the challenges of life.
There’s an amazing quote in The Power of Now (by Eckhart Tolle) about whether or not we as conscious creators should accept that bad stuff happens.
“Is suffering really necessary? Yes and no. If you had not suffered as you have, there would be no depth to you as a human being, no humility, no compassion. You would not be reading this now. Suffering cracks open the shell of ego, and then comes a point when it has served its purpose. Suffering is necessary until you realize it is unnecessary.”
Beautiful, isn’t it? Sometimes we law of attraction believers get down on ourselves for not having everything we want, not outwardly appearing to be as successful as others we know. As much as I believe in and practice visualization, affirmations and meditating on what I desire, and pray to the angels and seek enlightenment and read books and discuss spiritual matters for hours on end . . . I’m remembering through it all that I am in a process. I am experiencing everything–“good” and “bad”–for a reason.
Truly, it is all perfect.
And here’s the really funny part (that you may have guessed already): Ever since my revelation on acceptance, things are flowing better for me, too. What I need and want comes to me in a natural way, at the right time–often before I consciously know I need it.
If you are a dissatisfied spiritual person, someone who wants to become a more positive thinker right now, I encourage you to embrace this paradox.
Accept first. Then work on your deliberate creation.
Accept.
This is what the view in Puerto Rico is really like . . . when you’re stuck in a hotel with two overtired children.
Here’s a photo of a friend’s living room before I showed her how to naked-ify it.
Here it is after:
Here is her master bedroom before:
And here it is after reading my book:
Conclusion: my book is awesome. My photography is not.
Pick up your copy of The Naked House: Five Principles for a More Peaceful Home on Amazon.
Spiritual practice proliferation. It’s a thing.
Here are a few of the ones I try to do regularly (or have in the recent past):
How am I supposed to remember all these, much less choose between these at any given (possibly chaotic) moment?
Am I reading too many spirituality books, or what?
What does being in a continuous state of meditation, the kind I talk about in You’re Getting Closer, actually feel like? Well, it’s different for everyone, I’m sure. For me, lately, it feels like there’s a large basin in front of me, right at waist-level, filled with ice-cold, beautiful, pure water. Whenever I need to feel refreshed–or just whenever I think about it–I dip my hands into the water and drink from it or splash it on my face.
I say my mantra. I feel the body within, as Tolle says to do.
I drink out of the cistern.
I like this water. But it’s just water you know?
It’s everywhere.
Reminder to anyone who missed it that The Naked House: Five Principles for a More Peaceful Home is now available on Amazon.com here.
And one more excerpt for you:
“It’s a strange fact but a fact nonetheless: most people greatly underestimate the effect of their environment on their mood and enjoyment of life.
“I don’t know why this is. Shouldn’t we have figured it out by now? We pay three times the normal price of wine, just so we can drink it on an uncomfortable stool in a sexy, cool bar. We do the same with coffee at Starbucks. And we spend a whole load of cash to sit by a pool in Mexico, rather than the one at the Y.
“We think we have other reasons for doing these things, reasons that are much more logical and detached. The bar is convenient. Starbucks has free Wi-Fi. And in Mexico you can scuba dive or ride a horse.
“But home is convenient. Home has the internet, and there are bodies of water and horses here, too. We don’t go for any of that; we go because we want to get away.
Our homes can’t give us that getaway experience, of course, but they can offer something even better: an ongoing sense of well-being in our everyday life.
“Allow me to say again what I said in chapter one: Your home is like a person—and, like a person, it has a soul.”
If you are a fellow home organization hobbyist, check it out. It has a ton of ideas for greatly simplifying your life.
Lately, it’s been all about the mantra for me. I decide on one I like in the morning, then say it all the day long.
I love mantras, and yet–the mantra is not really the thing. It’s not the main thing, the reason for its own existence. Instead, the mantra is only as good as the feeling that I get as I say it.
The feeling, you see, is the thing.
Lately, my primary spiritual practice–my way of staying “in the vortex”, in continuous communication with the Divine, or whatever you want to call it, has been to repeat a mantra all day long. The common technique gets a twist, though–several, actually:
Dear people I love,
I may or may not be able to answer the phone:
1. While in the bath;
2. While driving;
3. While on a walk;
4. While having a conversation with a friend;
5. While dealing with a temper tantrum or a crying baby;
6. When both of my hands are full;
7. While on the phone with someone else;
8. While vacuuming;
9. While putting a child down for a nap;
10. While sleeping;
11. While waiting for a bus with children;
12. While in a parking lot;
13. While going to the bathroom;
14. While in a dental or doctor’s appointment;
15. While at a checkout counter;
16. While handling raw meat;
17. While changing a diaper;
18. While meditating.
Thanks for understanding. (You do understand, right? I thought so.)
Thanks to everyone who downloaded my latest book, The Naked House: Five Principles for a More Peaceful Home already.
For everyone else, an excerpt:
“It’s as true of a blender as it is of a dog: things don’t cost what they cost. They cost what they cost to buy, maintain, move around and store. All these factors cost money (yes, space alone costs money: square footage is the number one factor in home price, and have you seen your heating bill lately?), but there are several other costs to consider, and both are more valuable than cash. The first is the cost of your time: the sheer number of minutes that add up to hours that add up to days that you spend rearranging, cleaning, protecting, and working around your stuff. And the second is the cost of your emotion . . .
“For the purposes of this book, the terms “bare” and “naked” aren’t so much about wearing no clothes as they are about wearing nothing that distracts from your beauty.
It is the total and complete absence of clutter.”
The first (and only) time I visited New York City, something kind of funny happened: on the first street corner I came to by Grand Central, I understood what everyone was talking about.
The movies. The books. The people that wear those hats that say “I (heart) NY.”
It suddenly made perfect, total sense.
Some things simply cannot be captured, either in books or by a camera. New York City is one of them.
Meditation is definitely another.
Quick post today to tell you about my latest book. It’s called The Naked House: Five Principles for a More Peaceful Home, and as you may have inferred from the title, it’s about home organization and simplification. Here is the back cover copy:
“The solution is almost always fewer things. That’s the Naked House philosophy in a nutshell, though the importance of top-notch organization (“a place for everything and everything in its place”), design unity, cleanliness and quality round out this book’s description of the most desirable, peaceful home in which to live. With a tongue-in-cheek, personal style, The Naked House is an inspiring but not-too-serious primer on cleaning, organizing and reducing clutter—and on changing the way you view the purpose and soul of your home.”
You can get the book on Amazon here.
When I was growing up my favorite movie was Anne of Green Gables. The way I felt when I was watching it–or at least the way I remember feeling–was just so thoroughly good, so entirely removed from all things uncomfortable. For a while, I too lived on a beautiful farm and no matter how misunderstood I was, I always had a best friend, beauty, and a book.
Now I’m all grown up, and though I much prefer most of my life the way it is now, I do have one complaint: In order to feel that good again, I have to meditate.
A few months ago I started a book called Fights You’ll Have After Having a Baby. But of course, in order to finish it, I have to have more fights. And–guess what? That is just what I’ve been doing.
It’s been a real answer to prayer.
I once saw a cartoon (Dilbert, I think it was) where the punch line was: “There’s a word for what happens to people like you: nothing.”
When I first read that I thought, God, don’t ever let me become one of those people. Now I think maybe I am. I have a mortgage, a husband, a kid and a job. I live in the suburbs–and I love it.
The little life dramas are enough for me.
Besides, I have a bigger purpose in my life other than what I own, drive or wear. That’s the best thing about this spirituality thing; no matter how boring you are, you are part of the most exciting story on earth.
(And even if it all turns out to be a hoax, hey–I’m still a good conversationalist.)
Last week I made a slightly embarrassing mistake a work. I hate it when that happens. But then, someone told me I looked good for being pregnant.
Maybe it’s just all this positive thinking stuff I’ve been doing, but I think it all evens out.
Thanksgiving today. I did not celebrate. Instead, I did some work, did some chores . . . you know. Got stuff done.
I enjoy doing mundane things on holidays. There’s just something deep about it that I can’t quite explain.
A few days ago my (online) friend Evan Griffith gave me a one-question interview. The question: “What one thing have you been doing recently that’s making your life better?”
Interested parties may read my answer (and some gushing about my books) at freakybeautiful.com.