Margie puts it this way: “I’ve always known there were forces at work that brought things to me in ways that I could not have foreseen.” For Barbara, it’s more like: “I’ve always known there was something more than I could see, touch, taste, smell, and feel.” When we came together to expand our wish practice, it was the melding of these two viewpoints that set us on the path we are walking today.
We didn’t always know to call it wishing, but we knew there was something in the universe that was working, that was fulfilling what we were dreaming. As we have carried this idea forward, this post came to us as the more evolved idea that what we want - what brings us joy - is already known in our hearts, even if we don’t yet know how to articulate it. Resting in that, trusting in our hearts, the known comes to the surface and we are able to formulate our wishes.
We have a practice from our Focusing world called “Thinking at the Edge” (TAE) which is designed precisely to help unlock that which we don’t yet know how to put into words. In our wish practice, this skill is ideal to allow us to give voice to our hearts’ desires.
In TAE, we start from this very premise - that we have something to say, but we don’t yet know how to say it. So we start with a “draft” sentence of what that might be. We take the key word from that sentence - the word without which the sentence falls apart - and we study that word. We study it from both an outside perspective (dictionary) and from an inside perspective (“How does it feel?) to come up with several variations. We try them out in our “draft,” even creating a sentence that would seem nonsensical to anyone else.
All the while, we are collecting examples from our experiences of something similar to what we are trying to say. These are the instances that reveal the patterns of similarity in our lives. What we noticed when we began to do this was the number of times our wishes had come true when we didn’t even know we were wishing. It’s in seeking the “patterns” among the instances - the next step in TAE, which is when your “ah-ha” moment occurs - that we realized these were “wishes come true!”
Let’s look at an example.
Barbara wanted to move. Her reasons held a lot of negativity. She wanted to get out of the place she was in, change neighborhoods, and change the region where she lived. But there is more to the way we form a wish. We know that our hearts’ desires are for our well-being, but negativity is only the start. It is the point from which we understand, “That is what I do NOT want. Now what is it I DO want?” You might think these are the same, but they are not. We also know that keeping our attention on what doesn’t work for us brings more of that into our lives. It’s ironic, but it’s true from our experience.
So Barbara needed to replace the negativity with the dream. She could have said “I want a new home that’s perfect for me …” but what she noticed was that this sentence didn’t fully express what was in her heart. So she applied the steps we just outlined and came up with this: “I want to live in a space that resonates with my love of the ocean and nurtures me and my pets.” All we would like you to add is the phrase we have lately picked up from the work of Mike Dooley, which is “... or better.” So here is Barbara’s final version: “I want to live in a space that resonates with my love of the ocean and nurtures me and my pets, or better!”
To wrap this up, we know more than we realize. All it takes is quieting the mind and allowing what is already in our hearts to float to the surface and be known. If you have a practice of mindfulness, this is a perfect place to use it. If you don’t already have such a practice, you might want to consider developing one.
We would love to hear from you and how you quiet your mind. However, if you have any questions or would like to learn more, please don’t hesitate to reach out. We are here to help in any way we can!
Next week, we have a huge celebration coming as our one year anniversary is this weekend! Our post will be the story of how our blog came to life!
Until then,
Peace and All Good
Margie and Barbara
The Wish Mavens
Photo Credit
The photo featured in this post was taken by (and is copyrighted by) Barbara J. Dickinson.