Manifest Your Own Damned Destiny…

Hi there! Let me just preface this by saying that I love you. Honestly. Thanks for reading my blog and just all around being an awesome person. Keep that shit up!

But today, today, I’m going to hurt your feelings a little. You know that shit you’re going through? The things that you’re waiting for God or the universe or whatever divine principle you believe in to manifest in your life? And you’ve been waiting for a while and telling yourself that “it’s not time” or “it’s not meant to be”? Yeah… Most of the time, when those things don’t happen, it’s actually all your fault. 

Whoa now. Hold up. Calm down… I’m not talking about circumstantial things. I’m not talking about the things that limit you because of demographics or illness (mental or otherwise) or physical impediments. Those things can definitely be insurmountable. I’m talking about the things that you actually need to actively participate in in order for them to come to pass. We have a lot more control over our destiny than we think. I don’t believe in predestination nor do I believe in a supreme being that micromanages. We have ability and will for a reason and we need to take responsibility for all the things that we can. 

Too many persons are sitting and waiting for a breakthrough instead of going out and positioning themselves for something positive to happen. Serendipity is not luck, it’s when luck meets preparation. That job or career that you want isn’t going to find you. It may be your dream to be head-hunted or to magically stumble upon the perfect ad for the perfect job at the perfect time or to make that great networking connection with the right person. But that kind of luck is rare and if you decide to hang your hopes on it, you’re going to be disappointed most if not all of the time. You have to go out there and find it. Send out those applications, explore opportunities outside of your hometown, your country, your hemisphere if needs be. We live in an era where borders sometimes exist only in our minds. There are countries that are always seeking immigrants. It’s scary to contemplate leaving the familiar. But if you’re complaining that there are no opportunities while only exploring the opportunities that exist locally, you’re the one limiting yourself. If you live in a country that isn’t prepared to value you beyond the capacity to exploit your talents with nothing but basic remuneration, believe me, you shouldn’t let anyone trick you into believing it’s ‘disloyal’ or ‘unpatriotic’ to get up and go. 

Too many persons are waiting on the perfect relationship to fall into their laps… Yeah. The love of your life only trips and falls into your arms in movies. There’s no such thing as the perfect person. There are persons with whom you’re compatible. There are persons with whom you can build a strong, lasting relationship. But if you’re expecting that person to magically appear one day like Prince Charming or Princess Perfect, 9.5 times out of 10, you’re going to be shit out of luck. And if you go into every relationship with your exit strategy already in place, and your heart boxed up because you’re afraid it will get broken, guess what? At the first sign of trouble, you’re going to yell “I told you so” and run away… If you think a person is only perfect for you because they look a certain way and they say all the right things and they love you exactly the way you want to be loved as soon as you meet them and they never make mistakes… sigh… you’re never going to find that person. Get over it. Take your heart out of that box. If you’re not willing to be vulnerable and honest with someone, they’ll never truly know how to love you. If you enter a relationship and immediately clear a path to exit it, then that’s where you’ll focus and that’s where you’ll end up. Right back out of a relationship. If you’re constantly guarding your heart and your thoughts, you’ll never build intimacy. If you limit your preferences to the purely superficial, you’ll never find depth and meaning in your connections. If you really want a relationship, take stock of what you actually need and expect and have to offer. Think about what is truly important to you and what you really want in a partner and what your expectations are in a relationship. No relationship is supposed to rescue you from yourself. It’s supposed to allow you to be and develop into your best self while you help your partner to do the same. If all you’re thinking about is what you can get from the relationship then don’t be surprised if it fizzles out quickly because the other person isn’t being nurtured. Learn to love before you seek love and the connections you make will have more meaning.

Now here’s the big one… For me at least, this was very important. I learned to stop allowing people to dictate who I am… “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me” is one of the biggest lies that people have repeated since it was first uttered. It’s bullshit. The things people say to and about us have far reaching consequences especially when we hear them during our formative years. A lot of us are living the verbal and emotional abuse we were subjected to as children and young adults. Parents, teachers, romantic partners, friends, even complete strangers have said things that have gotten stuck in our psyches and we’re still exhibiting the harm that was done. Too many of us are manifesting someone’s flawed perception of us rather than the reality of who we truly are and who we have the capacity to be. We’ve been branded with negative traits, usually because we failed to be what someone would have preferred us to be in that moment and so we continue to portray those characteristics, largely to our own detriment. We find ourselves therefore, gravitating to situations and relationships that allow us to continue to manifest that trait, because we’ve started to believe that it’s who we are. Nasty little epithets, like ‘ugly’, ‘cold’, ‘not good enough’, ‘dunce’ uttered by selfish, unkind people in moments of hurt or frustration or even with the express intent of breaking us or hurting our feelings have taken root and are bearing poisonous fruit in our very existence. And because we have come to believe them, we pass up opportunities that are meant for us because we don’t realize that we are worth it, and that we deserve the best that life has to offer. Get those people out of your head and your heart. They don’t deserve to occupy that space or control your personal narrative. Stop repeating the negative things they’ve said about you. If that’s not who you want to be, then don’t continue to speak it over you life like the curse it is. You are and can be enough if you want to be enough.  

So you made it to the end… And you maybe don’t hate me. Whew. Because I hope you realize that what I’m saying is that in a lot of cases, you can have what you need and want. You deserve it. But you can’t wish for it. You have to work for it. Some of that work can be traumatic. There are a lot of things we need to unlearn, even about ourselves. Maybe especially about ourselves. Some years ago, my friend who is my yoga instructor encouraged us to do a particular exercise. It’s essentially a conversation with yourself. It’s not as easy as it sounds and if you decide to try it, it might require a little bit of liquid courage… Take some time. A day when you have nothing planned. Or plan to do this. Stand in front of a mirror and make eye contact with yourself. And speak honestly. Talk about who you are, who you want to be, what you do and don’t like about your life and about yourself and about what you can and will do to change those things. You will have to be brutally honest. There may be tears. A lot. But it purges. If it works for you, it will feel like starting over. Like you’re empty. And then, you can start to refill yourself with the things that are actually right for you. Another option is therapy. Sometimes, talking to an objective party will allow you to be more honest than you would be with yourself or with someone you know. If you can, this option can bring clarity to areas that you didn’t even realize were clouded.

At the end of the day though, the aim is self-awareness. Knowledge of self can lead to many positive outcomes that allow you to see the world a little clearer so you can manifest your own destiny…