I only do what I like

I haven’t won the lotto, nor did I get married to a millionaire. My life is still the same AND I only do what I like. How the heck does that work??!!

For years I watched myself getting in a foul mood for hours when the time came to clean house, especially the bathroom, I just HATED it. Having to give public speeches would make me sick to the stomach weeks in advance, and I would procrastinate for days before making phone calls to certain people. – The list of situations I hated or was scared of and uneasy with was long, very long….

I wanted a way out of this misery. So I started to look for a common denominator in all the situations, and I soon saw a pattern emerge. All of them had one fact in common: They did NOT meet my preference. I wanted them to be different.

Personal experience has shown me again and again that I can want a situation to be different until I am blue in the face. All I’ll get from wanting is frustration and fatigue.

Since the situations were unlikely to transform miraculously to meet my preferences, all I could do was LIKE the situations as they were….

Sounds crazy? That’s what I thought in the beginning. At the time I had started to study Eastern Philosophy and came across this ancient saying: Whatever you think you become.

Thinking for years that I hated to do “This” and didn’t like “That” certainly produced the promised results: I was thinking misery and producing it in abundance in many aspects of my life.

There was only one solution: learning to LIKE and enjoy cleaning the bathroom, smile at my nervousness of public speaking and do it anyway, get on the phone with difficult people and turn it into a game to see if I can make them laugh.

At first, it seemed crazy and unrealistic, challenging and all too simple at the same time. But I gave it a try – and I never looked back. It simply and completely transformed my life.

Imagine doing only what you like – always, and having the freedom to decide to do so. That’s how powerful we are, all of us.

Marie-Lou Kuhne Millerick

Night Musings: Letting the Genius Out

Have you ever cried in a dream? I just caught myself doing that.

In my dream an old friend sitting next to me in a circle of strangers, all women, said: “She never lets her genius out.” “She’s right!” I said to myself and then I cried.

*All nice and safe. No one needs to know. You’re in a dream, after all.*
And then, I woke up.

“Who’s voice was *that* ?” I asked. “A familiar one.” I answered.

(Have you noticed that when you ask yourself important questions, your Self answers?)

*Say that and they’ll all hate you. Let that thought out and it’s all over. They’ll know you’re different, a radical free thinker. Keep that Genie in the bottle.*

I know that voice. It lives deep inside. It’s a voice brought to life through shame.

*Who does she think she is, some kind of genius? She’s only a kid. Where did she get those ideas? Imagine, students having a voting seat on the PTA! She should be ashamed of herself.*

It’s the voice of The Big Put Down, a voice used regularly on children, especially girl children. Not for every idea, like “Let’s go to the mall.” Just the radical ones, like “Let’s take over the gym for first practice so we won’t have to wait until after the boys work out.” It’s the ideas that make a move to take power that attract that voice. *Make her an example. She’s getting out of hand with her big ideas. Soon she’ll be giving the other girls Big Ideas.*

In fact, if I was to design a society and I wanted to keep a class of people down, I would teach them shame. Then they would keep themselves down.

Shame works. I shut The Genius down every time.

Carlotta