Diane’s Blog

Q:  If I choose to pursue bankruptcy, how can I tell if that decision is based on fear or love?

A:  “Your decision will be right for you if you allow your heart, not your mind to lead you.  If you choose to follow this course of action, will you be doing so to escape fear or move toward love of Self?  Can you see this action as a way of informing your mind of what it needs to take into consideration, and leave the heart out entirely?  If so, you will need to look more closely. 

 Why would you choose to take an action which would undermine your faith in your heart — your Higher Self?  If you see this as a move towards stability — away from chaos, that may explain to you why it seems wise, but does it truly suit your deeper needs? 

 Ask yourself if you would pursue bankruptcy under less pressured circumstances.  The answer is fairly obvious.  Now ask yourself if you would pursue it only under extreme pressure to do so.  Then ask — where is this pressure originating — from without or within?  If you can truthfully say “without” then perhaps you have a case.  If, however, the pressure you are feeling is mainly coming from within, then there is only one point of origin, and that is Ego.  Spirit does not “pressure” — it guides, and gently, if firmly. 

 Do you believe you have only one exit door from your present situation?  If so, then you need to reconsider and allow for the unknown to be factored in.  YOU CANNOT KNOW CONSCIOUSLY ALL THE POSSIBILITIES AWAITING YOU IN EVERY MOMENT.  You only think you can, and do.  That is where most humans go wrong; by thinking they have all the answers, and choosing the most “logical” among those.  This is backwards.  You can only look at what you know, and then allow for millions of other possible outcomes to occur as well.  Your solution will more likely be among the unknown than the known.  Is this not often the way — at least when you remain open? 

 There is higher wisdom at work here, so it often seems confusing.  You are not used to seeing and thinking and feeling in these ways.  They are the ways of Spirit, not ego, and that is the nature of the shift you are now making.  All of this will eventually become second nature to you.  For now it is foreign and as such is slightly suspect — perhaps greatly suspect, based as it is on much that cannot be perceived readily by the five senses. 

You are becoming a multi–sensory human.  Remember this as you continue to bump up against the old ways — the old beliefs.  They are too limited and limiting for the life you have chosen to open to, so now you must make new choices daily to align with that new way of being.  Otherwise it will simply be more of the same. 

 The bottom line is to see beyond the demands of ego to the needs of Spirit.  You will only know your truth by leaving ego behind.”

I was watching Oprah yesterday, and although the topic was the widening rift between the “haves” and “have-not’s” in this country, what really got my attention was something else.  Near the end of the show Robert Reich, who was talking about the imbalance of wealth in our country, said that “luck” was an important factor in achieving what we like to call The American Dream. 

Oprah said that she had to disagree; she does not believe in luck.  She said that she sees it instead as the place where intent meets opportunity.  Mr. Reich fumbled around with this for a minute, but couldn’t seem to get away from the “luck” concept.

 I used to believe in luck, but that belief began to fade as the realization of a new truth entered my life: we create our own reality.  It seems that these two concepts cannot share the same space within us.  What does this mean?  In other words, it’s the old debate — there is meaning and organization, versus randomness, chaos, and by inference, luck. 

I now see that where you fall in terms of these two concepts determines not only your worldview but how you actually experience life.  For example, when I believed that circumstances in my life were conspiring against me, I was unhappy and resentful.  Bad things “happened” to me — surely I wasn’t creating them — who would want to?  I was at the mercy of factors I couldn’t control and therefore I was a victim. 

Then I began to open to the universal truth that made its way into human consciousness in the 1960s — we create our own reality.  As I did so, not only did I cease to feel that I was a victim of happenstance, but I began to see that my intention in any given circumstance had more power over the outcome than I ever would have thought possible. 

 Luck is in the category of  human beliefs that we cling to in order to keep from becoming fully conscious.  It gets you off the hook, doesn’t it?  But it also prevents us from becoming the immensely powerful beings we really are, because belief in luck says that you still think the real power is outside of you somehow.

So how do you improve your life if luck isn’t involved?  In the realm of social class in this society, certainly there are long-standing institutional factors and pervasive beliefs and practices that conspire to keep all of us in the same class into which we were born.  Do exceptions like Oprah transcend these factors due to luck, or is it that notion of intent meeting opportunity? 

 This is one of those areas where most people come down 100% on one side or the other; there are no shades of gray here.  How do you see it?  Earlier this week my husband and I received an offer from a friend to live rent-free in a beautiful home in the country not far from here in exchange for being the caretakers for the main house, which is occupied by a lawyer from Washington, DC only a few months out of the year.  As it turns out, this opportunity couldn’t be more well-timed, for reasons I won’t go into here. 

But the question I asked myself was, “How did I create this?”  And I knew the answer immediately — our intention, bolstered by our belief that anything is possible and that we deserve all the abundance that life has to offer, met with a wonderful opportunity.  The same holds true when circumstances are not so favorable. 

 I ask the same question, but I’ve learned, more and more, to stay away from the voice — the ego — that wants to blame Diane and make her guilty for having created something that she will most likely experience as painful.  I’m learning that part of the journey of becoming “conscious” in this life is to stop seeing chaos as an enemy.  What if the meaning behind the chaos is simply our cue to look at everything from a greater perspective than we normally do?  I don’t know about you, but making that choice helps me to stay sane when so much in our world appears to be madness.

Hi, People!  I’m taking some vacation time this week.  See you back here next Friday. 

I asked for guidance recently about marketing my web site.  The answer I received made me say “Duh!”  Guidance is often like that, in that what it really does is tell us what we already know but haven’t yet brought into sharp focus.  (Often because we don’t want to) 

 So this answer seemed obvious:  “You are an unconventional person — why would you choose to pursue conventional marketing advice?  It won’t work for you.  You will need to allow your creativity to flow freely; then you will find the methods that “work” for you.”

This inspired me to take another look at my life: sure enough, I have almost always been different.  But that square peg-ness was extremely painful in my first, oh, 40 years or so.  I feel compassion now for the Diane who so desperately kept trying to fit into a world that didn’t accommodate her uniqueness.  The thing is, if you haven’t looked within in a serious way over time, how can you know what your needs really are?  Most of us think we know, but we don’t. 

Here’s a test: How many times have you agreed with someone in the last week without digging deeper to take stock of how you really feel?  Then look at your life and ask, “How often have the important events and turning points in my life been governed by “shoulds”?  For example, I married my first husband because I was 37 years old and held the belief that if not now, when?  There’s a “should” for you. 

 Or going back further, I went to college right after high school even though I hadn’t a clue about who I was or what I wanted in life.  All my friends were going, and it was assumed by all that I would, too.  “Here’s the application; pick a major.  Well, put SOMETHING down.  You can always change it.”  Only since my early 40s have I really celebrated my different-ness, and that was pretty wobbly until more recently. 

 Now I realize that the very qualities I once felt I had to hide are the ones that comprise my gift to this world; it is always so.  If there is one pearl of wisdom I could give, it would be this: Choose to dig deeper and find your own different-ness, because within it lies the key to your greatness.  Okay, two pearls: If something isn’t working for you — look more closely.  Maybe it isn’t meant to, if it doesn’t fit who you really are.

On Monday of this week Jim and I visited his daughter Kara, who lives about 45 minutes from us.  She is a lovely, complicated, endearing 22 year old who I am delighted to have in my life, never having had children of my own (that I know of).  We get along famously, but every now and then I suddenly feel like I’m 85 years old, for God’s sake.  Don’t get me wrong — she never intends this response, but there it is, all the same.  What’s the demon that rears its ugly head? 

Technology — plain and simple.  This is the dividing line between generations now, as I see it.  When I was her age it was the “generation gap”; code for our rebellion against the old guard’s societal attitudes.  Now I ARE the old guard, and I will not go quietly.  Here’s the latest of numerous incidents: I just realized this sounds a little disgusting, so try not to get grossed out.  I was sitting in Kara’s living room, talking and idly running my hand over the nape of my neck when I felt a bump at my hairline.  “Hey — look at this — does this look like something?”  I asked Jim and Kara.  Well, her first impulse was not to run over and look, but to pick up her digital camera.  “Here, I’ll take a picture of it!”  She said.  I’m sitting there thinking, “What good is that?  What’s she going to do — mail it to me?  By then it’ll either be gone or I’ll be dead.” 

What I actually said was more like, “Huh?”  She grabbed the camera and stood up, saying “You know — I’ll take a picture of it, then we can zoom in on it!”  I forgot — Digital.  No waiting.  Zooming in AFTER you shoot.  Egad.  So that’s what we did, and it looked harmless in close-up; at least I’m not in a coma yet. 

I heard a segment on National Public Radio the other day about how this is the first generation that knows more than their parents about everything technological.  And with every new advance, we lose ground.  I don’t doubt the truth of this for a minute.  But the question is — does this mean we have nothing to offer these children of the post-information age?  Should we just throw up our hands and wheel ourselves off into the Sunset Retirement Home? 

Happily, I do know the answer to that one.  Hell, no!  There is something which is at the same time the most valuable gift my generation has to offer and also among the least valued by this society.  If you said “advice”, you’re close.  Personally, I have finally learned this about advice — nobody wants it; they just say they do.  So it’s not that.  What they do want is answers about life’s challenges, e.g. “How do I get out of THIS one?” “Why do I get so depressed about things?” 

Life experience is the only way for young people to feel that they are okay, but they don’t have nearly enough of it yet, and the world they live in is so much more demanding and fast-paced and cynical than the one we knew.  We can share our experience with them.  But there’s a catch — you can’t provide helpful examples of how you got through something unless you gain some perspective over the years, because chances are you screwed up at their age, too.  I know I did. 

So it’s only now — now that I have a sensitive young woman in my life who is so like me at her age it’s uncanny — that I realize how far I’ve come.  15 years ago I was still struggling with my own identity.  In the interim I looked within and worked at letting go of my need to judge, my inability to forgive, and my mistaken identification with the ego’s idea of who Diane is rather than with my heart’s knowledge. 

Now I’m able to say to Kara, “Well, sweetie, I did the same thing when I was your age.  I got into trouble for it, and I lost some friends.  I finally learned that I’m okay just as I am, and I don’t have to pretend to like what everybody else does just to keep their friendship.”  Or whatever the topic is — you get the idea.  I’ve also learned to add something my parents rarely, if ever, gave me — unsolicited cheerleading.  Maybe it’s BECAUSE I didn’t receive it that I value it so now, but whenever I can I add, “You are such a fabulous person.  I know you don’t see it that way yet, but you will.  Some day you’ll look back on these days and wonder how you could possibly have underestimated yourself so.” 

Don’t we all need to hear that more than we need to know how to use an MP3 player?  Interesting, isn’t it, that we still choose, as a culture, to place the public “achievement” (almost always in terms of dollars) above personal triumph over old, dysfunctional attitudes and behaviors?