You Can't Stage the Magic

So much in life is “staged.” We stage our houses before selling them – on some level we stage ourselves each morning before walking out the door to face the world. Sometimes it’s actually difficult to discern reality from fantasy. But the truth is you can’t stage the magic...the space where the unexpected unfolds, where faith fuels the wind beneath your creative wings.Balance is a dance – a dance between doing and not doing, faith and manifestation. For me, the sitting-back-and-allowing-things-to-unfold-as-they-are-intended-to muscle definitely needs a bit of fine-tuning. I’m excited about so many things in life and buzzing with ideas—unfortunately some of them come to me in the middle of the night as I lay awake composing letters, editing pieces, constructing new issues of BEST SELF Magazine. AAAAH. Stop the merry-go-round - I want to get off. I need to sleep. At the dawn of a new day, I hit the ground running (before the sun is up) – carpe diem, ready to get to work, lots to do, not enough hours in the day, let’s get moving, I’ve got to fit it all in – eternally feeling like I’m racing against the clock. But sometimes the Universe needs us to sit idly on the sidelines and to simply enjoy the ride – to stop the perpetual motion and mind chatter…to take a nap midday, to throw caution to the wind, let the laundry pile up, leave the dirty dishes until the morning, to be whimsical and playful – to just be.This is counterintuitive for those of us who were raised with the belief that only hard work with your nose to the grindstone reaps benefits, that you don’t lie around in a hammock waiting for life to happen to you. What’s all of this sitting around on yoga mats taking in deep breaths all about? Well, not me…I’m not going to sit around waiting, I’m going to get out there and create it – right now, dammit. I don’t have time to listen to my breath…I’ve got work to do. And therein lies the problem – I have been practicing insanity. First step towards recovery: Step away from the to-do lists.How do we go about striking that delicate balance? When is too much idling on the sidelines too much, and when is it not enough? Can you trust in the stillness to figure things out, to receive guidance in the quiet of your own breath? I don’t have some tried and true practice, but with all this meditation talk of late, now that it is in vogue – it couldn’t hurt to give it a whirl and see what all the fuss is about. Meditation is the new black. I clearly had room for improvement in the quieting-of-the-mind department. For me, throughout my life, I used to simply refer to it as “prayer.” But I craved a new practice. I have gleaned pearls of wisdom from many around me, and continue to do so. I’ll place my order for a proper serving of ZEN inner peace with a side of spiritual connection. I wanted to redefine my own contemplative mindfulness stress reducing routine.  Sign me up - I’m game.Don’t get me wrong, I am being a bit dramatic in order to make a point, but the truth is that while I have much greater consciousness to being in the present moment, appreciating what is – I often sabotage my own reflective quiet time with “busy-ness” – tending to my family, my house, my clients, my responsibilities…hello, I think I lost me somewhere in there. Does this resonate with you?Don’t freak out – it doesn’t require a major intervention or a 21-day detox program. You’ve got this. We can all use a recalibration from time to time and with a single determined thought to shift the status quo, we can turn rockets of desire into reality.Even if you don’t know what to do with it, give yourself a time-out. Step away from the situation. Sit idly, breathe, and remove yourself from the chaos and conflict of your own doing. This can be done anywhere. Even a momentary breather can shift the trajectory – a momentary shout-out to the Universe…”Help me, I don’t know what to do with this.  Please tether my limiting beliefs. Please reveal the truth in this situation.“ Some deep breathing coupled with some clear requests, will immediately transport you to a state of calm. We may not get the answers we want when we meditate, or instantly resolve the problems of the world as we would like – however, if we can release ourselves from the mounting stress within ourselves. We can stop the downward momentum. We can create space for new thinking and a fresh perspective.Give yourself permission to not only feel what you truly feel, but to elbow your ego back into its place.Recently, I have been struggling with the creative balance – the balance of creating content that is aligned with my mission, coupled with the chatter of the world around me – the “shoulds.” As I have written about many times before (I must need a little reinforcement of this message), the magic happens in a should-free zone and yet we live a world that tells us we have to work hard, amass stuff, save for rainy days, plan. Can it all co-exist?I want to be the Houdini of my own destiny, but I acknowledge the work I need to do as I move along. It is undeniably, exhaustingly, exhilaratingly amazing to identify what you want to do in life – to align with your purpose and passion. But unless you are going to cloister yourself away in a cave, you will come face-to-face with the world and their opinions. Get clear about what matters most to you. You get to write the script. Get clear about your power – and take responsibility for it. Are you going to give it away so easily or are you going to protect it fiercely?The world is full of magic unfolding all around you that doesn’t require any orchestration. Take a walk in nature and observe the Universe’s display of divine perfection. Tap back into the stardust sprinkled all around you, the place where your heart beats madly…then breathe, trust and allow. This is how to stage the magic.