Hi there,
I will start this week’s blog post with a few questions. They all refer back to the post Avanti!!! from 27th of March, where I shared a very simple drawing of a bagua, which is one of the fundamental principles in Feng shui. You might want to go back and read that post, otherwise this will be a little tricky to understand 😊
What have you been up to since you heard from me last time? Have you noticed anything that is blocking or hindering you from go full speed right into your projects?
Have you made a simple drawing of your home, and did you discover any areas where stuff tend to gather?
Do the areas in your life, where you feel stuck or have difficulties, coincide with the clutter you have marked in your bagua?
And my last question – have you managed to sort any of the piles out – did you feel a difference?
When we aim our focus on a specific thing, we tend to see that “thing” everywhere, in different shapes and forms. When we, as we do right now, focus on what is blocking us and our own clutter, it can easily be perceived as a insurmountable obstacle and the only thing we can look forward to, is an endless cleaning spree. Just by thinking about it creates stress and overwhelmed, for some (if we are not gifted with a pedantic nature and have all our possessions in alphabetic order). That overwhelm tend to show up in different ways, depending on what kind of strategies we have developed to handle life.
To start sorting out that which slows down our progress, might feel like yet another item on our already very long to do-list. I hope I can give you a little nudge in the right direction, and if I manage to inspire you, to make the clarity a little bit easier to grasp.
Your mindset and the frequency of your thoughts, when you approach something you would like to achieve, actually affect how easy or difficult it will be to accomplish that which you have in mind.
We also have strategies that we generally use, strategies that set the tone for our entire life experience.
Go back and think about your reaction to my drawing of the bagua, and my reminder of how we can apply Feng shui to get more flow in our lives. You could also go back and recall how you felt when reading the questions in the beginning of this blog post. I am sure they also triggered a reaction in you 😉
There a of course as many options as there are people who read my blog post here, but there are a few general responses I would like to focus on today. Was one of these yours? Why don’t you read them out loud and feel the frequency. What kind of response do they create in you?
- MUST / HAVE TO / SHOULD – Crap, that is why my life is so stuck!?! I must/have to/ should really do something about it – but when?
- DEFENCE Yea, right! So what, if I have a little dust in my corners and my kitchen drawers are messy? That has absolutely nothing to do with who much flow I have in my life!
- CANNOT DO IT ALONE -Oh no, my partner would never agree to do something about this – and if we do not do it together, it will not work…
- BORING – Just reading about this, makes me tired. I am not an orderly person, I like a bit of a mess and I guess my life work good enough as it is.
- YES, BUT… – Very interesting thought, but I am not a Feng shui practitioner, so I will probable do something wrong. Then my mother-in-law is coming to stay for the weekend, so there will not be enough time. Also, starting up this will give me trouble, because if I start cleaning, I would like to continue with the rest of the stuff too, and I do not have time for that…
- EXITING – Cool! Must try this out, wonder what will happen….
I am sure you are familiar with these reactions and have used them all, in other contexts a some point in your life. I would like to share with you what I have discovered about the different frequencies.
MUST /HAVE TO / SHOULD
Crap, that is why my life is so stuck! I must/have to/ should really do something about it – but when?
Whenever we put must/have to/ should in the equation, we add on extra-weight and resistance. If we use these words for someone else, it sounds very similar to an order, does it not? Even when we use them towards ourselves, there is still a forceful energy imbued in them. In this example someone (or our own self) is telling us to “go and clean up our room”. By accomplishing the must/have to/should, we gain acceptance and receive a pat on the head for being a good girl or boy.
By using this way of speaking to ourselves, even before we begin, the risk for failure is already there. The intention we set is filled with struggle, and distrust in our own ability – otherwise we would already have done it. It is a difficult endeavour that we need to squeeze into our life or something that we need to force ourselves to do.
Listen to them again, must/have to/should. These words do not create lightness, inspiration and the energy to start a new project. They transform everything they touch into a chore.
Maybe you think I am exaggerating – but if you give this a little bit of thought, and pay attention to how you use them in your everyday language – what do you feel?
DEFENCE
Yea, right! So what, if I have a little dust in my corners and my kitchen drawers are messy? That has absolutely nothing to do with who much flow I have in my life!
About this response there is very little to say. If you get the inner response that this Feng Shui-business, or anything else for that matter, is not working – it will not work. Whatever we wish to do, we need to believe in it and have our heart in it, or it will be a pointless use of energy and focus. The worst thing is, that after doing a half-hearted attempt – the comment we often express is: See!?? I told you it wouldn’t work!
There is another thought experiment you can do here. Remember something that you set yourself to do, that you did not believe in, whole-heartedly. How did it go?
CANNOT DO IT ALONE
Oh no, my partner would never agree to do something like this. If we do not do it together, it will not work…
This one could take up an entire book, all by itself. It touches on the very foundation of your relationships and the dynamics between you, your partner, children or others that live under the same roof as you do. If this was your reaction, maybe that is something that would be interesting to take a closer look at.
It can also have other roots. Is there an insecurity to start projects alone? A need for consensus? Someone else to lean on, who can be the engine?
Vis-à-vis the clutter hunt, you can always start by taking care of your own things, even if the rest of your household do not want to participate. You can take a closer look at your stuff, your piles and your part of the messy corners. Maybe by taking care of your share, you will inspire the rest of your family on an unconscious leve, to take care of their shares.
BORING
Just reading about this, makes me tired.
For me, personally, I have learned with time, that when I feel bored in advance, or there is no energy around something, it is actually not for me. Many times I have pursued something anyway and then often ended up off track or realising that I have been wasting my time. I have started to pay very close attention to this feeling, and it has helped me navigate in my life in an unexpected and very positive way. Maybe your energetic language works the same way. This is not the same thing as boredom as a general response to life and to taking action.
If this was your reaction to the very thought of going through your home on a junk hunt – that is probably not something you will benefit from, or even will be able to muster the strength to do.
YES, BUT…
Very interesting thought, but it will probably not work because… (I leave out the bla-bla-bla…)
There is a fine line between pinpointing actual problems and making excuses. Where that line goes, we only know ourselves. If you realise that your reaction is not about pinpointing actual problems, you might suspect yourself for being a procrastinator. But it still would be too easy to say it is all about procrastination (even though it can be). Sometimes there is a fear of expressing a clear NO, so we line up a row of reasons why we should not do this or that. To wear out opponents or our inner voice, telling us that we must / have to / should.
COOL! MUST TRY THIS OUT, WONDER WHAT WILL HAPPEN….
I guess this is the easiest way to get something started. From this feeling we are most likely to harvest the fruit of our labour, compared to the others. There is joy, curiosity and the mind of a scientist – What will happen? Where will this experiment take me? Can you feel the lightness and freedom in the words?
The words we use, the thoughts we think, the etiquette we use for labelling our world, the intentions we set – all of it has an effect on the process and the end result. How we speak about life and its content, how we think about our world, what we belief about the outcome, will actually colour the result. To be consciously aware of our point of view is a good practice, because there are patterns to discover behind everything. But there is also truths to be found.
We need to look for the truth, that sometimes is hidden beneath the patterns. You might even find that they are not connected.
I had planned to write something short this time – and I failed big time!
I hope I have inspired you (by sharing what I have found) and maybe irritated you a little bit ;), to do a little work-out with your self-discovery muscle!
Have a great day!
Carin
