How do we create our lives, in a way that feels authentic, powerful, and in harmony with the world? I have many answers to that question, none of them true, but all of them potential useful so here’s a brief exploration:

In the paradigm of Personal Empowerment we discover that we are creators, that we are responsible for our own fate and that instead of bemoaning what has been we can step forward and create what we want to be.

And… it’s going to take work. It’ll take time, effort, sweat and tears. We’re taking our lives into our own hands. It’s up to us to bridge the gap–to build the wall, brick by brick.

One of the cracks in personal empowerment, though, is placing our sense of self out there, in the achievement, in the future, in the better version of us and our life. In our capacity to create, we often mistake our creations for us. But when we spot this incongruity we get to look inwards and remember who we really are, independent of where we’re at. This is the paradigm of Wellbeing. Recognizing that we are already fulfilled, and that the actions we take in the world can flow forward from that. We’ve already won, and now we get to create.

From wellbeing, it’s interesting to notice that we become more active, more creative, more inspired. In the absence of pushing ourselves, we find ourselves guided by something deeper or greater than our personal self. This is the paradigm of Wisdom. Something awesome is trying to happen, and our job is to allow it.

Yet the personal is not lost when we surrender ourselves to the universal. As personal agendas and stories and identifications drop away, ironically we become even more authentic, and idiosyncratic. And a cool thing I’ve noticed is that when we play at higher levels (i.e. more in alignment with wisdom), our personal desires and the desires for what wants to happen feel more intricately linked. This is the paradigm of Creation. It’s what manifestation teachings try to describe, but often drop the ball by translating it into something you can ‘do’, collapsing it into a personal empowerment perspective that doesn’t really work.

The more you see your experience of the world is something you’re creating, the more aligned you become with the world, and the more malleable the form of the world becomes in your awareness as well. If you see yourself a certain way, the people around you will usually play along and reflect that back to you. And the more clear your awareness, the further this starts to reach. If you see someone a certain way, they will start to see themselves that way too. If you see the world a certain way, it will start to behave that way. This isn’t changing or causing the world, it’s something even more profound: it’s creating the world. And it’s something that you’re doing, moment to moment.

Rather than this being a denial of what is (e.g. when it’s raining it’s raining), it’s seeing what is visible and manifest as only a miniscule perspective of what’s going on. Like the blind men and elephant, the rain is part of the entire ecosystem of the planet. Wisdom transcends (and includes) what we can rationally grasp, and limits disappear as we become channels to create something from nothing (rather than just rearranging the somethings).

This is the space of miracles. And it’s the territory I’m exploring these days, where the personal self and impersonal self (wisdom, Tao, universal intelligence) work together as a team. Instead of creating from ego or lack (I wouldn’t even want to create from fear), I am drawn to create from inspiration, from love and service and the joy of creation.

In this space, uncertainty is possibility.
No one is broken, nothing lacking.
Stories are for pointing, not believing.
Attachments are distractions and desires are guidance.
Consistency and structure happens not because you will it, but because it wants to be.
Life is both simpler and more magical.
Wellbeing infuses itself into action.
What has been normal starts to fade away as noise, as what has always been natural is welcomed forth.

And, my what I’ve learned from experience is that there’s infinitely more I still haven’t seen about the nature of creation.

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Michael McDonald :: Transformational Coach :: authenticintegrity.com​
raising the consciousness of humanity, one conversation at a time

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