I’ve got so many things to write about, I hardly know where to begin! Begin I must, though, as this morning Universe spoke directly to me, succinctly and clearly.

I have a habit of opening cherished books at random to see what message they hold for me. It’s a kind of magic, which I freely admit to employing and enjoying.

Even before this, I received a priceless gem of wisdom yesterday evening from a book called Do The Work, by Steven Pressfield.

I had bravely assembled an Ikea floor lamp (a daunting task for a single female unused to following wordless instructions). Glowing in the light of my achievement as well as that from the lamp (it was worth the struggle) I proudly placed the lamp in my living room.

Then I needed to make a change to a side table that bore a pile of books. I spontaneously decided to put most of the books away. (Gasp!) Of course, I had to open the ones I hadn’t touched for a while. Steven Pressfield’s gem of revelatory wisdom was that the opposite of resistance (which I have assiduously practised all my long life) is assistance. Light bulb, Eureka moment!

Actually, Life/Universe/Gohonzon is always assisting us. Always working to manifest in our outer life the thoughts and pictures we consciously or unconsciously hold and feed in our inner life – our minds and hearts.

Put simply, when we get involved in a situation that makes us freak out and get stressed and inwardly reject because “it shouldn’t be happening” and now we believe the sky is going to fall, we actually get assistance from Life to manifest what our minds are crazily creating – a negative outcome.

Alternatively, we can master our mind and decide everything will work out well regardless of the fact that we haven’t a clue how. Then Universe gets involved in a positive way. In other words, when we decide to stop resisting what is, Universe assists us to experience a positive outcome.

The negative side of what I’ve just described could be called “getting in your own way.” Which I have also practised assiduously all my life long.

However, as 2022 drew to a close I found myself writing in my Morning Pages, “I deserve to grow.” This came unbidden from deep in my subconscious mind, and I wrote it over and over again. “I deserve to grow.” And I knew this meant getting out of my own way. Dropping the resistance and the fear and the self-doubt and “I can’t…”

I made “I deserve to grow” my Number One resolution for 2023. Closely followed by “I focus on what I want,” “I heed my better judgement,” “I earn $200,000/year as a writer and speaker,” and, “I use my mind’s mystic power for good.”

But when I wrote my determinations and placed them on my Buddhist altar ready for January 1, 2023, I hadn’t even written a blog post since September. Kind of a disconnect between my habits and my desires!

However, I now sit here in my Writing Room (which is a miracle in itself, eight-and-a-half years in the making due to my self-doubt and procrastination, a.k.a. fear) because after a wonderful local SGI Buddhist meeting this morning, over a large cup of matcha tea, I randomly opened The Vein of Gold, Julia Cameron’s magnum opus about the creative process.

Universe assisted me through Julia’s voice, recorded on paper in 1996. (No matter – truth is eternal.) I read:

“I don’t know how to get to the good writing without going through the bad.”

Bye-bye perfectionism! Just Do It! As Nike famously said back in 1988.

Julia wrote about the necessity for patience. Then she nailed me with these words:

I do not mean passivity, which is frequently mistaken for patience. It is passivity that tells us not to fight for our work. It is passivity that takes “no” for a final answer. Passivity is exactly that: pass-ive. We take a pass on growth on our own behalf. Patience is very different. Patience is not the acceptance of weakness. It is the quiet, slow, deep funding of strength.

This may not be a great blog post. I’m writing and publishing it anyway. It may help someone. It has certainly helped me to write it. Because this simple act has helped me grow.

And I deserve to grow! 😀

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash