I have been chewing on the latest issue of my friend's Michael Neill's ezine - okay, not literally chewing - because it may help you if you've read my last two books and because I'm having such a hard time with this so-called retreat I'm in the midst of.
A bit from Michael's newsletter:
"In 'You Can Have What You Want",' {his very useful and powerful book} I identified three keys to
recognizing that you are living an inspired life:
1. You are doing what you love and want to do
2. You feel guided
3. Things seem to unfold as if by design
I then suggest that in order to get to this point, there are really only two things you need to do - consistently ask yourself "What would I love to do today?" and whenever possible,
do it."
Which is the major theme of The Life Organizer, my hope is the weekly questions keep bringing you back to desire, true deep desire, and helping you see it and hear it and feel it.
But here is where I have gotten tied in a knot which is confusing desire with mood. My mood these days is low - I'm doing a ton of deep grieving - and that low mood convinces me I don't want anything. That mood likes to say, "What the point of anything?" So this nine month retreat I'm in the midst of is is being eked away, without renewal happening, because I don't feel like renewing! (And this lack of deep renewal is also because life and work goes on and I've been subscribing to the swaths of time theory, which is another retreat boondoggle i.e. don't wait for them, those swaths of time are often deadly anyway). Then enter Michael's brilliant distinction which is...
"...the difference between navigating by desire and navigating by
mood.
Navigating by desire means you base your decisions about what to do or not do on the question "Do I want to?". If the answer is yes', you do your best to move forward; if the answer is 'no', you do your best to stand pat.
Navigating by mood, on the other hand, is when you attempt to base your decisions on the answer to the question "Do I feel like it?". If you don't feel like doing something, you put it off until later; if you do feel like it, you move forward.
While at first these two ways of making decisions seem similar, they take people in two completely different directions. Since our moods are often tied up in old habits and patterns of
thinking, following them tends to just create more of the "same old, same old" in our lives. Somehow, we just don't get around to making those changes we know we'd love to make, and things that seem like they'll take too much effort are put off until the last minute or don't get done at all.
Your wanting, however, is a living, breathing, fluid process. Each time you do what you want (or don't do what you don't want to do), your actions seem effortless and inspired ideas become
almost commonplace. Over time, it becomes easier and easier to read and follow your inner compass. Life gets a lot simpler, and the pursuit of success becomes a lot more fun.
Today's experiment is a simple one:
This week, before deciding on any course of action, ask yourself "Do I want to?" Wherever possible, allow your answer to influence your decision and guide your choices.
Do this irrespective of whether or not you're "in the mood" - if you do, you'll notice that your mood begins to change "all by itself". "
Desire says, "Let's write" or "Let's paint" or "Let's call a friend and then Mood says, "Why bother?" In that moment between the two impluses, there is choice!
What might happen for you today if you became very curious about the distinction between mood and desire and if you remembered that moods are always malleable, even when we are depressed or have PMS or are otherwise sunk in the mire.
"You are what your deep driving desire is. As your desire is, so is your will. As your will is, so is your deed. As your deed is, so is your destiny." From The Upanishads
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