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Bring your best self to light - May 2010. I've done all this work and I'm still fat & broke! Sent Saturday, May 1, 2010

I've done all this work and I'm still fat and broke!

Hi ,

I hope you are well. I wonder if you have experienced this...The one consistent message that comes through from personal development letter is that if you do the "inner work"...it will inevitably lead to outer success i.e. the great body, car, money, house, adoring partner etc.

I don't know about you but that hasn't been my experience. And when I listen to many of the people I know...that hasn't been their experience either.

And what has been disheartening is that it seems to be the areas where we put in the most work is where the greatest "stuckness" seems to occur.

I relish the irony that the areas that I put the least amount of thought, planning and effort into generally work pretty well...but the areas where I would really really like to see transformed stay stubbornly the same!
I found myself wailing over this to a friend of mine and she asked me about surrendering...about making peace with the reality of the situation. It's interesting she brought that up because a big part of the Ignatian Exercises that I am working through is about really surrendering..being willing to accept poverty and humiliation if it serves God better. Now let me point out..I am no fan of poverty or humiliation. I've had poverty and I definitely prefer having money in my bank account. Ditto with humiliation.

But the programme is about the willingness to accept that - IF it's what will serve the greater good.

Maybe God/Source/Universe prefers

But what I have noticed is that on the inside - I am experiencing more peace, joy and gratitude than I ever have, even if alot of my outer circumstances have not changed. Maybe it's better in the greater scheme of things that I stay overweight because I can serve better that way? I don't know. Maybe the lesson is to actually just let go and accept that fat or thin...I'm basically OK and loved by God/Source/Universe.

Maybe the area of your life where you are struggling is the one where you need to learn how to be peaceful no matter how it is. Maybe it's something that you have a strong desire to control but the lesson is to take your hands off the wheel. I don't know.

I would love to hear what you have noticed about this...

Take Action!

Identify an area of your life that works pretty well. What have you done/not done that has created that?
Identify an area of your life that seems stubbornly resistant to change. Could you explore the idea of making peace with it? Toying with the idea that if you remain fat/broke/single/unhappily married/disorganised that you are actually OK...
What would that peace look like?
If there was one strategy that you know worked in one area of your life that you could apply to this one..what would that be?

What I am enjoying this month....

Watching several episodes of FlashForward together.
Listening to Kate Bush - "The Kick Inside" written while she was in her teens. (for the hundredth time and still amazed)
Discovering Bat for Lashes...what a voice..what vocals!
Waving at strange men on the motorway (doing 70 mph) and my teenage son's scandalised response "you're married"... (sub text - someone might see ME with YOU)
John Connolly's blog..."And another thing"
Doing the No Name Club with Perenna Fleming..what a wonderful group!
The Big Bang Theory - a comedy about nerds..what can I say?
Whip it - the movie about roller derby that is much much better than the (usually male) reviews would have you believe. Great female coming of age story.
Ikea - had my first visit to the Dublin store this month. Wow! It's mighty...love those ideas..the bag for the remote controls..the bookends..
Anticipating the new books from some of my favourite authors including the aforementioned delightful John Connolly
The current affairs programme that interviewed the President of Iceland...the volcano wasn't his fault - really it wasn't.

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