but it won’t stop the rain …

(NOTE: If you are in full on “Wow! This manifestation stuff is GREAT!” Don’t read this. Go enjoy the ride. I’ve been there too. Things changed. As they sometimes do.)

I am still grateful that in my very first experience of the Law of Attraction / Secret / Manifest This type teaching, there was a woman sitting right behind me at Unity of Tulsa quietly sobbing. 

The (young, very fit, very capable-sounding, well-spoken) man at the podium was exhorting us to use LOA to manifest! Manifest! MANIFEST!! the life of our dreams and it sounded wonderful. Magical. Could it be this easy? Even my parents had that old book, “The Power of Positive Thinking,” in the library. There was its counterpart out there in the ether too, “Think And Grow Rich!” I know there were more, but aside from adopting affirmations and a few other helps-with-retraining-my-mind in the 80s and 90s, I mostly missed the whole manifestation mania that probably started with Oprah and continues apace even now. 

Thankfully, i was even then, pre-diagnosis, experiencing the wild, exciting thing that is my ADHD brain and it wasn’t long before my focus was on the weeping behind me and not the fully manifested winner at the podium. 

(And another NOTE: if you’re living in your dream house, driving a divine car, money stacking up every minute, health radiating from your happy self, I am delighted for you, truly. Stay on that ride! And this piece is not sour grapes. I am also very, very, very aware of my own great good fortune.)

But the contrast between the monument to positive thinking sharing his amazing successes and the woman behind me was too much. When it ended, he asked if anyone had questions. There were a few. And then crying woman stood up. 

“I have been coming to these meetings every week for over a year. I have read all of the books. I listen to recordings. I’ve taken your workshop twice. I have been unable to find a job for nine months. I’ve lost my health insurance and I’m about to lose my house. Why isn’t it working for me?” 

I have a specially attuned radar for hearing the undercurrent of a lot of things we say to each other and to ourselves, and I heard: “what’s wrong with me?” 

You know, because IT’S A LAW! It is a tit-for-tat, everpresent, works-when-you-work-it LAW! So if it’s not working in your life, it’s gotta be you. 

The winner at the podium probably heard that undercurrent as I did. “What’s wrong with me?” and he jumped right on it. It doubt it was malicious. He was a believer, a knower. He had a 1000% certainty, supported by the evidence of his life, that this thing worked! And so he said, “You’re clearly missing something. It is a Universal LAW and it cannot fail.” 

I had shifted to look at her as she was speaking, an older, plump-ish, very tired looking African American woman with streaks of gray in her hair. Then I glanced back at him. My mind said “nope,” and for that I am so very thankful.

I don’t know what happened to her ~ or to him. Did he somewhere down the road encounter the chapter of L.I.F.E. entitled: “Human: The Unwanted Stuff That Can’t Be Avoided”? You know it. Most of us do. The deaths of the ones we love, severe illness, downsizing-for-profits job loss and foreclosure, insurmountable despair, so, so much more. All of the things that can befall us in this life that no amount of happy thoughts can prevent or take away. 

But still we try, yeah? It’s so uncomfortable to actually sit still with the yuck, the pain, the loss, the sorrow. To allow. 

I’ve had the word “equanimity” in my mind since going to hang out with the Walking For Peace Monks (and Aloka-the-monk-dog) in Virginia in early February. Equanimity ~ “mental calmness, composure, evenness of temper, especially in difficult situations” ~ is one of their principles. The monks walked on no matter what. Brutal heat and humidity in Texas, Alabama, and Georgia, rain all along the way, bitter cold, ice, and snow in the northern states, illness, of both monks and dog. A runaway truck crashed into the line of them, and a monk was badly injured. Still, they walked. 

They accepted, allowed, and in the end, were triumphantly welcomed by tens of thousands of people who were perhaps, as I was, awed by their commitment and their ability to just keep going no matter what. Their challenges and their quiet commitment changed hearts and minds and you could actually feel the love in their presence, both radiating from them AND from the crowds along the side of the road. They weren’t thinking positively, they were accepting and going on, regardless of what unfolded on their path. 

I am convinced that no mantra or pretty talk will change the agonies of life, the things that are in no way positive in our human terms, and insisting that it’s so, as is so common in the Metaphysical Industrial Complex and the world in general, can be really hurtful and toxic. The mantras, the comforting tools, the hopeful sayings when something dreadful has arrived: they’re umbrellas, raincoats and they’re incredibly useful at times. They can help us stay dry in the storm, but they don’t stop the rain. 

Life can simply become too much, and not by our own doing. AND we can keep going, especially if we can avoid flogging ourselves for having run aground, for our broken-heartedness. 

I was talking to a friend via text about my own assertion that since so many of my loved ones have died since 2012, I have been given gifts. That really is true. My heartbreak and suffering led me to new information that has profoundly changed my life. 

But let me clarify that the death, the loss, the shattered heart is not a gift. The losses have never changed. They’ve never gone away. This is another one of those AND things I harp on all the time: My heart is wrecked, now cobbled together AND I revel in my new life. It’s and, not because.

AND I recognize that this is my own experience, and not universal. As little shiny aspects of the One of Us, we’ve come here to live out this art studio of a life experiencing The Story of State-Your-Name (thanks to my friend Suzanne G for that). 

Our sorrows, our heartbreaks and griefs, they’re not failures. They’re human life. We get through in whatever way we can and when we’re done here, we are celebrated with such joy, no matter what has happened. (Medium and author Claudia Milligan’s beautiful, troubled son David who completed suicide in his 40s, was met by an incredible party: “We NEVER thought you’d last as long as you did. Well done, you!”)

I’ve just been given a tentative diagnosis of a thing that, untreated, not only causes pain beyond anything I’ve ever experienced physically, but can quickly cause blindness. (I’m going to be fine!) As much as I am writing this for anyone else who’s ever felt like a failure because life’s problems have come knocking, I am writing it for myself. Because as much as I believe LOA is not a law (it is a nice tool), the moment this thing appeared there was a tiny little whisper of “Uh oh, where did I go wrong? What did I do to create this?”

And the answer is just this: I lived. It’s life. It isn’t a judgment or a punishment. I look at Louise Hay and see that similar diagnoses can be “caused” by a lack of self love, being harsh with oneself, etc. Well, I’ve definitely have had that in my life. But so have countless others who aren’t looking at a diagnosis like this. (But Louise Hay? For all of her insistence that ERRYthing can be cured if you just do X, Y, and Z, and hold your mouth right, she’s dead.)

Honestly, I think the thing that really scares us is that we’re here in this pinball machine of life for however long it lasts, and it is flat out random. Randomness is frightening. We want control, predictability, steadiness. When things are going well, the sense of control is seductive. “I’ve got this.” 

We don’t even want to think of (or remember) those moments when everything irrevocably changes: the knock on the door at 2 a.m., the husband rising from a nap, gasping “I can’t breathe,” the doctor’s solemn face, and her words, “I’m sorry…”

After sharing with some friends what’s going on with me a few days ago, I was blessed to spend some time with one of them, the remarkable medium SandySoulsister.com. I talked about living in the AND space, maintaining that center allowing of what comes, and Spirit, through Sandy, pointed out that there is also a higher place to find respite when despite all efforts, my peace fails. 

I’m startlingly not upset about this thing that’s come calling in my life. That may change going forward. I do strive for that line in the center of the yin/yang symbol, the sinuous flowing back and forth between joy and sorrow. And it’s possible that, while taking a massive dose of steroids, I may slide out of balance.

AND there is a comforting place of equanimity that comes from considering things from my soul’s view, which does not judge things as good or bad. As hard as that is to grasp in this art studio experience, I am convinced. “Even in the hard times, my soul is rejoicing” is a mantra delivered to Sandy by my dead mother, whose hard times were very, very, hard. That higher place is my observatory. It’s where “all will be well” really is a law and it’s not arising from vision boards and mantras. It’s not human realm. I can go there, breathe, remember to allow, and regain that equanimity that kept the monks walking, despite the challenges thrown in their way. 

For me, there’s peace and freedom in what I call “having a chat with the monster” which is like what my friend Suzanne calls the US Navy’s “what if drills.” What if this happens? Or that? When I’m mired in a belief system that tells me my thoughts are determinative, I can be terrified by what shows up in my mind. Fear is not how I live these days. Thoughts are just energy, flowing as energy does.

Remembering my soul’s viewpoint that it’s all okay, I can look at the monstrous ones, take their measure, bid them goodbye and move forward without fear. I can intentionally choose something comforting on its heels, but just because I want to, not because I’m frightened into it. 

The thought is not going to get me. Mostly, the worst thing doesn’t unfold. Sometimes it does. Having looked at it ~ “What if my husband dies?” “What if my child gets sick?” “What if my heart dog’s illness is cancer?” ~ I’m not taken by surprise and that counts for a lot in my experience. 

We’re here, living, experiencing, because it’s different from our true Home. How can we see the brilliance of our shine unless we encounter darkness? A candle in the sunlight is virtually invisible. When darkness comes, as it will for most of us at some point, hardly any one of us will welcome it. And very rare are those who actually seek it. 

Yet sometimes darkness is how we come to know who we really are. Why would we punish ourselves for “failure” when it’s just life unfolding? Truth is, we are so very loved, no matter what. We are cherished in ways we can’t even comprehend while wearing these human suits. All states of being will pass one way or another, with or without our intervention. Raincoats and umbrellas are great. Sometimes, as hard as it is to believe, so can be the rain.

“This is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Do not be afraid.” Theologian Frederick Buechner.

Peace, equanimity, trust, faith, allowing mystery: these are my touchstones in the rough spots. 

Thanks for reading if you made it here. Wishing every single one of us nothing but joy (and peacefully aware that other things may come.)

__________________

I promised the lovely Sandy Serling of the Fear Unzipped Podcast, that I’d put this out here. So here it is, a conversation with this one, Lynette, and Sandy. She’s got a really great podcast with a lot of thoughtful conversations on her YouTube channel.