Shifting Blocks

How many times have you found yourself throwing yourself against a wall, trying to break through it, only to discover later that the wall had a knob that allowed you to open it? Or that you had to move 3 feet to the left to walk through the archway?

Last week I spoke of the challenges about faking it ’til you make it. This week is about getting things done by getting out of the way.

Abraham, speaking through Esther Hicks, states that, before the soul is born, it is used to being able to manifest things immediately. It thinks, and it happens. When it gets born and enters the body, suddenly things slow down. It takes time to make things happen in life.

But the soul can make things happen instantaneously. The mind says that can’t happen. And so, it doesn’t.

The mind creates our perceptions of the world around us. These perceptions build atop each other in unexpected ways. In the same way that lateral thinking can create unexpected thoughts, changing our perceptions can create lateral passages to get from point A to point B.

As you look at where life is slower than you’d expected, consider a couple of things.

What ideas are holding you back?

Frequently our mindsets are our worst enemies. When we believe a certain “truth” about how the world works, we interact in that fashion, and people interact with us from that place.

Sometimes the beliefs we let go of interact in unexpected ways. For myself, I believed that I had to please others – and therefore did not want to speak uncomfortable truths. I then learned that I was causing harm by withholding information. The people around me couldn’t make good decisions without information. My partner actually appreciated when I told him that I didn’t want to do what he wanted to do.

I learned that being honest felt better than being a sycophant, I learned to value integrity. Three weeks later, I landed a job that I still perform 13 years later, which supports me well with a wonderful bunch of people who value honest, thoughtful communication over looking good. If I were still a sycophant, I would not have been accepted to work there.

What things are holding you back?

We apply meaning to many objects, circumstances, people, etc. When we want to shift our place in life, some of those meanings may need to shift as well. If a particular object carries meaning, then we may have to let go of that object.

This becomes especially clear in the death of a partner. When a relationship ends in death, we naturally go through a period of grieving, where we mourn the loss of our loved one. We create closure as each anniversary passes during the first year, then we begin to release.

But when we hold onto their belongings, this period becomes extended for as long as those belongings have meaning. The mementos hold energy on them.

While we have our energy tied up in those items, that energy isn’t available for new people to enter our lives. We retain that “married” look when our partner has passed long ago.

For myself, my first partner passed away in 2008. I immediately had to remove some of his items, because their presence was simply too upsetting. I would not be able to function with them present. This process took about two weeks.

When I decided I wanted to move to a new apartment three years later, I realized that I still had a huge collection of stuff that was his. This wasn’t just random books and knick-knacks, but things that I knew were important to him, and I had never gotten around to letting them go. And now was the time.

When I reached one of the paintings he had created, I balked. This was a piece that was special to me – a painting of the Grand Canyon, done so well that, under a spotlight, you could feel the heat radiate from it. It was the only painting of his that I had an emotional attachment to.

When I got to it, I didn’t want to get rid of it, even though I felt that it would be necessary. I closed my eyes and asked my heart where it belonged, and I immediate got the image of a corner of the painting sticking out of the apartment complex’s dumpster.

I burst out crying.

After a while, I felt my former partner saying, “Don’t worry, I’ve done better. I can always make more when I come back next time.” And away it went. And I felt a flood of weight leave the apartment.

In 3 months, I cleared 60 bankers boxes, 1,200 DVD’s, a kitchen’s-worth of tools (I don’t cook), paints, easels, memorabilia, and paintings. Everything that was meaningful to him was gone.

I was no longer attached to my old apartment. I felt lighter. I was free to move to my next place.

All that was left to complete my move was a mark that a new chapter had started in my life.

Rites of initiation

I had known the town I was going to move to. I’d pictured what my apartment looked like – greenery in the front room, plenty of light, and enough space to let me separate my work life from my home life in the same space. My friend and intuitive channel Darcy also was hearing that my bedroom should have a blue wall. (This last part I was a little skeptical of – I’m not much into painting spaces that aren’t mine – but it bears relevance to the story.)

So I started looking.

I looked for two months.

Nothing.

I had been with Steve for 10 years. Before I knew him I had no idea that I would have a deep loving relationship with a man. I had always expected that I would be with a woman. So after he passed away, when I started thinking about new relationships, I was thinking about relationships with women.

On May 25, 2012, I first met Kirsten, who proved to me that I was ready for a relationship with a woman.

On May 26, 2012, she returned to her home.

On May 27, 2012, I found my apartment. The front room is painted green. The master bedroom is painted blue.

Sometimes, we need to pass through rites of initiation to change how our world looks. When we have a belief that has become part of our fundamental way of being, when we shift our relationship to that belief, we may have to “prove it” to the Universe, and to ourselves. And when we have the proof that we are starting a new, different, chapter in our lives, then the world shifts around us.

Looking sideways

The key to all of this is that the cause and effect is not necessarily linear. In the same way that we rarely see “what comes around goes around,” frequently a shift in our perception has an unexpected outcome. Frequently things only make sense looking back at them.

I was not expecting that honesty would lead me to a career that tripled my income. But I knew that integrity was vital to seeing myself and learning to love myself.

I was not expecting that discarding a painting would free me from my old home. But I knew that I could not carry around the energy of my former partner and expect a new partner to enter my life.

I was not expecting that beginning a new relationship would land me in my new home. But I knew that I was starting a new chapter in my life when I started that relationship.

Eventually, however, connections begin to make sense. We begin to see that the road to our destination is filled by blocks of our own creation. As we shift perceptions, let go of things that block our energy, and prove to ourselves that things change, the road becomes easier to navigate.

In a way, life is a lot like a game of Klotski, where wooden blocks slide to allow the large square block to move down the board until it can exit through the bottom. As different things, perspectives and events shift, they leave space for us to move closer to our destination.