I actually had an organized day this week. Instead of hurtling headlong from one thing to the next, tearing out the door with my blouse on inside out, putting on my deodorant in the taxi cab…(I don’t drive my own car, you see. They always say if you drink, don’t drive, and I had to establish my priorities)...arriving at obligatory meetings and appointments with mere seconds to spare, in my usual state of happily frenetic productivity, I actually had a day where I followed all those rules of supposedly successful people. I got up, and tried to meditate, to seek out the voice of Source within.
Unfortunately I only picked up the static of my inner critic, chastising me for my lassitude, exhorting me in no uncertain terms to get my fat buttoxen (that’s the plural) out of the comfy chair and get to work.
Why I even walked on my friend Edna’s treadmill in a passing fit of that physical fitness they’re always touting as so beneficial. For heaven’s sake, let’s keep that between us Smartisisters though. After all, I have a reputation to maintain. If word gets out I’ll never be able to wear my plus size blinged out T-shirt again, you know, the one where all the sequins together spell out “I used to jog but my margarita kept sloshing out of the glass.”
Cripes, when I got dressed that day, not only did I remember to put on my deodorant before my clothing but,...wait for it….I moisturized!!!!!
I know. And brace yourself, I even wore a matching brassiere and panties!!!!!!! Now come on. That deserves flippin’ applause. How often are they both clean at the same time? Huh? Huh? How often can you even FIND them at the same time??!!!!
See what I mean. I was ORGANIZED in capital letters. Whew! So much pressure! Mercifully days like that don’t happen very often.
Of course, things are back to normal efficient chaos now. I have to tell you though, that day I was thinking. Yes, I was contemplating life, and musing about how completely overwhelming everything is on a regular basis, how it never stops. You barely make progress with one issue, when you have to rush over here and keep this plate spinning, then dash over here to put out that fire, two steps forward, twenty two steps back, to the point where you don’t even know how to fix it all any more. You don’t even know WHY you want to fix it all any more. You’d sure like to know though when it became your job to fix it all in the first place. Dag nab it!
Some days you just feel like a manx cat chasing its tail.
So what do we do? We worry. Yes, worry. It’s like inverted faith, way I figure. Means you don’t trust that the universe is unfolding as it should and that you’ll get what you need in any given situation. Worry, if you ask me, it’s the kiss of death. Your mind going everywhere, but nowhere, simply spinning its wheels, as it assaults you with an entire torture chamber of “what if’s” and you buy in to the panorama of abhorrent possibilities, turning each one over in your imagination, and stressing about the scary scurrying things you uncover underneath.
But here’s the kicker. None of it has happened!!! And we’ve already torn ourselves up inside dissecting the various scenarios, analyzing them, imagining the worst, essentially living through it all in our heads, and yet there’s no real evidence that our anticipated “worst nightmare” will ever even really happen!!!!!
And if it does, kinda begs the question as to whether, with all that worrying, all that energy concentrated on a negative outcome, you actually brought it about yourself. Hmmm.
Worry. It’s certainly genetically programmed into our family. My mother was the poster child for “Neurotics Are Us”, a woman congenitally incapable of living in the moment. Take her out to a restaurant, she can’t focus on enjoying the meal because, self admittedly, she’s too busy thinking about plotting out the route she’s going to take through the tables the next time she has to go to the bathroom!!!! Hello!
Ah! How we waste our precious energy on worrying about some nebulous eventuality that may not even come to pass. Can you think of anything more unproductive? By the time she’s actually ready to go to the bathroom, people will have come and gone, the chairs may be in a totally different configuration thwarting her carefully thought out plans. All that time wasted, all that angst for nothing, and the bottom line is when you REALLY have to go to the bathroom, when have mere tables and chairs ever stood in your way?!!!
It’s sort of like that old saying, you know, “I’d rather die peacefully like my grandfather, in his sleep, not screaming in terror like the passengers in his car.” See. Same outcome, but who had the better time at the end? Deal with the details as they happen. You don’t need to depress yourself by anticipating disaster. If it’s coming it’ll be there soon enough.
By now we’ve all heard of The Secret, of course, and that happy little Law of Attraction, and by now we’ve all wondered why this “seek and ye shall receive” theory seems not to work for us. Worry. Yup, that’s what I say. It’s because of worry, the antithesis of faith. You cannot receive what you are asking for if you don’t really fundamentally believe it’s coming your way. Think about it. When you seek and then stress, “Oh dear, I hope it comes. It might not come. What if it doesn’t come? Omigod what will I do? I’ll have to live alone…in a cardboard box…. and then what if it rains.”, you see how you’re kinda working at cross purposes there. Only thing you’re probably gonna manifest with that wishy washy attitude is a thunderstorm.
Worry, in essence, is pretty much having more faith in what you don’t want, than in what you do. My friend Rosemary Heenan**, The Miracle of Money Mentor, speaks of faith as a “certainty that what you ask for is yours.”
She explains, “Faith is belief that will you have what you desire; confidence that it is yours before you see it in material form.
When you ask, you must have faith that your request is granted before you see the evidence of it in material form.
You know it’s a done deal; you express your gratitude for the answer to your request and you go about taking action from the certainty that you already have what you desire.
However, you cannot sabotage your request with beliefs that are in conflict or the power of faith will act on the limiting beliefs rather that the expressed desires.”
Sure this fast paced, frenzied, stressed out modern world can make you feel out of control. But here's the good news. You were always out of control. We all are. Control is an illusion. You can’t change what’s happening around you. The only thing over which you really have control is how you react to it.
Give the universe a little credit at being able to unfold for the best, without YOUR divine intervention. Trust that you are exactly where you are meant to be on your path. Have more faith in the possibility of your success than of your failure, otherwise you’re going to end up a burnt out briquette on the barbeque of life, and then what fun are you going to be at the picnic?
So keep the faith, Smartisistas! Banish worry from your life. As the prodigiously haired 80’s band Cats Can Fly would say, “Flip it to the A Side.” Some musical diversion for you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJGripBLSbY
Ah, 80’s videos…so comparatively tame. Wonder if they’re all bald today.
Til next time, remember, one size NEVER fits all.
Shirley Best ~ Investigative Housewife, Stress Management Expert, Fashion Icon and Certified Credit Card Utilization Consultant.
Read about Zandra Bell (aka Shirley Best) here ...