Copyrighted by Lorna Tedder. Originally published in Third Degree Below.
For me, the most important thing about keeping a journal is its usefulness for catharsis and personal archeology—that I can write through an issue and either purge it or lessen it somehow. The second most important thing about keeping a journal is that it becomes a record that can be studied later to note change and to analyze motivations, results, and what went wrong as well as what went right. And that makes understanding Universals Laws and the Law of Attraction a real omigods experience.
As I was editing Third Degree of Separation and reading back over the proofs of Third Degree of Freedom, I kept looking at my experiences and the experiences of others under the lens of the Law of Attraction. Some of the things I’ve seen in the past two years of journal-keeping make me sad. I won’t dwell on that sadness because I can use that knowledge now to make changes, but I will make the observations and document them. What I do see in observing my past observations is how we really do manifest our worst fears because that’s where we live. We have that pattern in our past and we expect and fear it in the future and so we mentally are in the past with it and in the future with it at the same time. All time is now, and it’s fear and doubt all the time in the present.
I can look back at example after example in reading about my own life and what I’ve seen around me. People getting not what they want, but what they always worry about.
I see it quite a bit in careers. The people who constantly worry about not getting a promotion. The people who constantly worry about trouble in their jobs and how everything but everything will go wrong. The writers who worry constantly about never selling again or getting the editor from hell or getting bad reviews or not meeting deadlines.
I see it in relationships. The woman who constantly worries that she’ll lose her boyfriend, to the extent of holding on so tightly that the other person runs screaming away. The people who worry about not being able to control their children or that their kids are always doing something bad, to the extent of treating their kids like they’ve already done something bad. The guy who worries that he’s a fuck-up and if something good, really good, comes along, he’ll just mess it up because that’s what he’s always done, what he always does, and what he’ll always do…and goes on to fulfill that prophecy in every imaginable way that it would be funny if it weren’t so tragic.
I see it in money issues. The people who focus on how they never have enough money and how they’ll never get out from under their debts. The list goes on and on.
I look back over some of the things I’ve really wanted in the past two years that didn’t happen. They came very, very close. With the advantage of hindsight and new knowledge, I can see now how terribly close they came to fruition, within minutes or even a few feet! I never would have guessed then how close certain dreams were before I shoved them away without realizing it. I was expecting them, believing in them, excited about those goals being fulfilled. Then fear and doubt would be introduced.
The fear usually came from the past. I knew what patterns I’d been entrenched in. I didn’t know how anything different looked. It took time to learn a new way and reprogram into a new pattern. The fears were usually more of an internal alarm, though outside influences could certainly introduce them to me. The doubts, on the other hand, usually came from outside and seeped deep to my core. I could be so sure of something and then hear someone else’s “more knowledgeable” (or so I thought) advice about their own experiences and patterns with the same subject, and I’d begin to doubt. Looking back, I see now that many, many times, I was within a few hours of having something I really wanted and I allowed my doubts to shove it away. Too many times, I let other people’s doubts push it away in the name of “being realistic” or “I don’t want to see you get hurt or disappointed” or even “It’s wrong of you to want that.”
My past fears and patterns helped to pull those doubts to me from outside sources. The past made me very open to any and every doubtful thought floating around! So there I was, trying so hard and working so hard for all these dreams, and at the same time pushing them away with doubt.
Back in the mid-90’s, I met a clairvoyant at a writer’s conference in West Palm Beach. She was a larger woman with reddish-blonde hair and wore blue clothes the shade of a robin’s egg. As striking as she was in her appearance, it was her eyes that were so piercing and ethereal. She had some free time and so we chatted for almost an hour about writing and human development. As I started to leave, she handed me a book and asked if it was something I might like. It was a book on writers’ markets— where to sell your fiction and magazine articles—that someone had left behind, saying they didn’t need it anymore. The book was expensive—about $40 then—and one I’d been wanting.
“Would you like to have this?” the woman asked me.
I hesitated. I really did want it. But even when she explained how the book had come to her and how she had no interest in it except to pass it on, I still hesitated. I didn’t want to feel obligated. I didn’t want to take something she might want. I didn’t want to take something someone else might want or need more than I did. I could surely find the book later and buy it in a bookstore at full price. I didn’t feel comfortable accepting the gift.
“You know, Lorna,” she said. “You work so hard to make so many things happen for yourself, and then when the Universe offers them to you, you don’t take them. Can you simply accept a gift as a reward for your efforts?”
I took a deep breath and accepted the book with a simple “Thank you.” A simple thing, but so hard for me to do. I don’t think I’d ever done that before. That memory has stuck with me for years, but it’s still, even recognizing it, been hard.
I am finally…now…learning to accept gifts.
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