Several
years ago I heard a highly respected speaker say a seemingly contradictory
statement to the modern ‘manifest-what-you-want’ principle of life. She said, “Don’t get what you want; want what you get”. Since 2005 when
I heard it, I have let that statement simmer and settle in my mind, and today feel
the wisdom of the words.
We
believe we are, and want to be, the drivers of our lives…except when things
don’t go our way, when we seek to find someone or something to blame for our
pain, disappointments and ‘failures’. I am sure you have all heard, and perhaps
practiced, what is referred to as a modern manifestation principle in life,
focusing on what you want….visualizing and working to get it. I certainly have,
often pushing quite hard to make things happen the way I want. But what happens
when, despite our efforts, things don’t work out the way we want, when they ‘blow up’, and we’re left standing in disbelief
and upset after all the hard work, maneuvering, negotiating, discussing, and pushing
to make things happen? Then what?
That’s when the tears, anger, blame, guilt and other energy-depleting emotions
rush in. I’m speaking from experience… a recent one, where I decided after
several years of things disappearing from my life…regular work, a relationship I
wanted…the death of my loving, faithful ‘puppy’ of 13 years… to change my life.
I felt it was time to focus on recreating, get back into the driver’s seat of
life, and relive a life that made my heart beat with joy. So I mustered courage
and energy to follow a dream of change, a new relationship and new life. I made
the decision, packed, re-organized my life and moved 6000 miles to California!
I
will refrain from the details, but after months of preparation and great expense,
the entire experience blew up shortly after I arrived. Things did not seem to
support my arrival or stay. To top off the upset and the incredible “tsunamic” (I made that word up) icing on the cake,
a few days after my arrival in California, my sister called to inform me of an
accident that was leading to both parents’ grim downward demise, physically
and emotionally, toward possible death! So, before long, after releasing unsuccessful
temporary housing and re-packing my goods and chattels, I was on a plane for
the East Coast, to offer whatever solace and assistance to both parents and
sister.
My
help was limited, since we are mostly powerless in the face of life’s
unstoppable cycles and events, and others’ reactions to these immutable occurrences. Soon, with feelings of grief, fatigue and despair, knowing I could do
no more where I was, that California offered no concrete future, I folded
myself onto a plane to return to the only quiet place I knew….to rest, cry, and
try to make sense of what had just occurred in my life; I returned to my little
house in France. I had been gone less than a month, yet my whole life had a
thoroughly different perspective.
Exhausted
and confused, I came back to nothing, other than a closed up house. I had no
car, having sold my old one; my phone was cut off. No one expected me; no work
awaited me. Getting things in workable order was long and painstaking; it took
over 2 weeks to have phone and internet connections, which hindered re-establishing
work and keeping abreast of my parents’ situation. And what possible future could this new-found
California relationship hold at 6000 miles? I had felt so sure of its potential and transpersonal quality.
In
the midst of my emotional turmoil, logistic difficulties and pain, I suddenly ‘knew’
my father was dying…it was as if a chapter needed to close, something
definitive to happen… and it did. My sister called me Sunday May 12th
to say he had passed early in the morning. The chapter was closed. My father
had left…how was my mother going to respond to this change in her weakened state, after more
than 50 years of marriage?
For
all our trying and desire to make changes (ones we seek), sometimes life
reminds us, “you’re not really in
control.” The disappointment and confusion of this turn of affairs brought
me once more to my knees… not only to pray for my father (a difficult,
irascible controlling personality) so he would know, the night of his passing,
that he was loved despite his controlling, angry behavior, that had caused
much pain and fear in our entire family...but also to finally 'get' this
life is a classroom! We have all come to learn lessons of forgiveness and love, and our lives are the curricula.
Today
I know this, like I know I can swim. Throughout my life I have tried to
avoid looking at trying, painful situations, yet at some point it was time. Life
brought me face to face with the ‘lesson’...when I was strong enough to look. Then each time I thought I had
finished, ‘let go’, done that, it was
only when life decided that I was done, that it was done.… “You’re only done, when you’re done” and this may not be when you
think you’re done. Here was a case in point. I still had work to do to remove
the cooked-on, crusty illusory beliefs and desires around relationships, particularly
‘romantic’ ones. Six weeks after leaving my ‘dream life’ in California I could see that despite my years of inner work, I had once again been looking
for another dream to make my life ‘perfect’, expecting a new place and a new
relationship to make it all better. Returning broken, disappointed, perplexed, and
angry to my ‘home’ in France, a place I wanted to leave for several
years now, I realize how these circumstances offered the necessary curriculum
to ‘break’ me…force me to stop trying to change the outer, and take a deeper
look at the inner…beliefs and unconscious motivations. And though I thought I
had done all that work and was ready to move on, I wasn’t, not fully.
Today
as I feel more peace and acceptance, closer to my deepest dream and desire in life, I see how
necessary it was for me to come back to where I started, ‘lose’ my dream, be
present for my parents in a wrenching, fearful time, and forgive (in the way A Course in Miracles instructs
forgiveness) my father…. as a way of forgiving myself and my life story. “Don’t
get what you want… Want what you get”.
Now I can feel the wisdom and learning in these words. I see how much I
resist ‘what is’ in life, in both small, “insignificant”, and bigger ways… how
I focus on wanting something else in life as a way of judging what I have, as
if what I have been given is NOT good
enough. ‘Beware seeing yourself badly treated’, the Course instructs. Our projections of blame and victimization
are mind tricks, veils to hide an unconscious, pushed-down feeling of
worthlessness and guilt. Events and occurrences in our life happen to show us
on the Technicolor screen of life these deepest beliefs and fears; fortunately,
like the film projected on a screen, they are illusory. But it is up to us to
stop resisting looking at them, sit down and actually take the
curriculum of our individual lives.
Don’t get what you want, want what
you get! How would the quality of your life change if in any situation, painful
or pleasurable, you took time to be quiet, turn within and inquire?
·
What can I learn here?
·
What could I learn if I stopped
complaining or judging others?
·
What is the deeper lesson of this
experience?
I
heard a beautiful Quaker talk a year ago when I was mourning the passing of my
sweet faithful ‘puppy’, Brownie. “God
always sends us Love in a form we can relate to or understand.” Think about
your own life and you’ll be amazed how true that is. It is not God or Universe
that deprives us, or keeps us from having love in our lives. It is the blocks
and barricades we have erected to our own experience of love. As A Course in
Miracles beautifully states in its introduction:
“The course does not aim at teaching the meaning of
love, for that is beyond what can be taught. It does aim, however, at removing
the blocks to the awareness of love’s presence, which is your natural
inheritance.”
Don’t get what you want, want what
you get! You’ll be amazed at what you didn’t want to look at but need to,
so you can feel free, relaxed, and at peace.
Blessings on your journey,
Abigail
Abigail DeSoto
author-L'Amour Déraisonné: Reclaiming Self, Transformational Teachings from Psychosynthesis and A Course in Miracles (2010) Psychosynthesis Press is a wonderful gift of life to oneself, family or friends.
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