The Tao of Andrea
I had lunch with a friend yesterday and we talked about getting older. I mentioned that it’s quite difficult for me at age 50, in menopause, and while living with my current circumstances to experience pleasure or joy. Not impossible, but it doesn’t come naturally or easily and I assumed that this was unique to me and the result of having cancer and my ovaries removed with any residual hormones suppressed. I was surprised to hear her say that she also feels this way and she doesn’t have cancer. In my mind, all of my healthy friends are living their best lives. Save for a few loved ones going through other types of difficulties at the moment, I just assumed that if you have your health are financially stable then you’re good. It’s so easy to become self absorbed when you have cancer and this was a good reminder to look up from my own difficulties from time to time.
We talked about it for a while and as it turns out, life is hard for everyone. Some more than others, but for so many people these days, this wonderful opportunity to live, can get clouded by hardship, loss, mundanity, maturity, responsibility, disappointment and trauma.
When you’re fighting to stay alive while living with metastatic cancer, it’s easy to forget how to live, how to cultivate fulfillment or contentment. Which is such an irony honestly. After blowing through existence in a state of intensity, enduring much anxiety while in treatment or recovering from treatment, you sometimes realize that the last how ever long period of time has been spent in mental struggle which drains creative energy. Even without the difficulty of cancer, life hands us all challenges that can seem insurmountable or that just simply never go away. Things happen that cant be fixed. We lose loved ones and life changes. Disappointments come and we endure grief. Sometimes we get repeatedly knocked down or redirected and life shifts our direction in ways we don’t like.
With that said, perhaps there is a gift beneath the noise, offered more quietly; life has given us the opportunity to create. So how do we do it? How do we grab hold of our thinking and stay focused on creating what might bring joy and fulfillment in the midst of the heaviness that life can sometimes bring? The words of my amazing friend Andrea Quinn, who also just so happens to be a highly successful life coach, bringing hope to women across the globe with simple but profound ideas about how to accomplish anything in life, ring out in my mind… You have to stop pushing so hard she says….“You must receive to create”. So what does this mean?
This simple phrase reminds us to relax into the flow of life instead of fighting for control or clinging on to previous versions of ourselves or life. It reminds us to point our mind toward our resources and to start exactly where we are. “What do you need to receive (NOT GET) to create what you want?” She would ask. This simply reframe orients a person toward the abundance already present in their life. You start looking at your actual desires and how you can have a reciprocal relationship with existence such that you both offer to and are provided resources from life through others. To come to notice it requires only that you widen your perspective so you can see what you already have access to through humility, attention and gratitude. The mind is the most powerful force in life and this subtle shift in thinking can have a remarkably powerful impact on your life if you practice it regularly. You start to notice opportunity instead of lack which points you away from desperation and need. In return, you create an offering from your heart to share with the world. It only requires the courage to claim your truth and to ask yourself and the people in your life for what you need.
Being as old as I am, having gone through what I have and even after becoming a therapist, I am often shocked at how much time I’ll let go by being asleep in mental discomfort and life paralysis. These reminders to wake up and snap out of it, really are wonderful little gifts.
I thought long and hard about the idea of spending the rest of my life feeling dull and bleh and it feels unacceptable to me. It is true that I live with so many limitations now that I struggle to identify things to get excited about, largely because I’m still grieving the life I wanted and didnt get. While I am not going to miraculously change my circumstances two things can be true at once. I can grieve and still look for opportunities to heal and to grow. This is life after all and there is always more. More to do, more to know and more to learn, perhaps more importantly more to create and share. So I asked myself this morning something that Andrea suggests that you do each day before you get out of bed, “What do you want to create today?” It can be as simple as a batch of cookies or a nice ambience for your morning, or as complicated as an incredible presentation or a signed contract. “What do you want to create today?”. Let it resound in your mind. Get used to orienting all your tasks to this philosphy. Try to practice it as often as you can muster and make it a habit.
So I ask myself this question today and I ask you the same. What do you want to create today and what do you need to receive in order to do it?