Some days you realize all the good stuff that is floating around to help you move forward on your path.

Victoria Castle says:  if struggle were the answer, we’d all be there by now.

Victoria’s book, The Trance of Scarcity , is a lovely little treasure I happened upon while blogging – she was writing it and blogging about it and ultimately I bought it.  And it’s a great little bedstide manual.  Right up there with Tama Kieves This Time I Dance!: Creating the Work You Love and Julia Cameron’s  The Artist’s Way, and oh a dozen or other books I can’t live without (like Women Who Run with the Wolves).   But I digress.

We’ve been talking about discovering and naming where we find ourselves and then finding out what we really really really want to do with your one wild and precious life (that’s Mary Oliver).

Actually, Mary Oliver says:  Tell me  what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

She’s asking you for a story.  Stories are what are behind our travels in fear and scarcity (Scare City) and, homeopathically they are also the cure.

Victoria notes, “Whatever Story we’re playing on the endless tape loop in our heads (and most of them are unconscious), it’s there because at some point in our life it contributed to our survival. ”  To exit Scare City she offers the compass question “Given what I care about, is this story useful?”

So I was thinking about how to present all this today, when the following blog presented itself in my inbox – so right on target that I know it is meant to share!  I’m only going to offer you a piece here because I want you to click over and let the writer, Fi Bowman, know what a great writer she is (and she’s moaning about not painting! Ah, to see ourselves as other see us.  I would give a lot to be able to write like this! Oh, and “Mike” is the name she gave her goblin, sorta like my Hamster)

“So are you going to write something then? On your blog? I’m only thinking of the readers!”

“You’re so thoughtful,” I say, “but I don’t know what to write. You know I haven’t been doing much creatively. People will think I’m a flake and a failure. An artist who never makes art. Who wants to read about that?”

Mike squints at me. Or maybe that’s just how his face is arranged today.

I sigh. “Honestly, I’ve got nothing to say. It’s supposed to be a blog about an artist. Artists make art. I’m clearly a fraud.”

“A fraud? What, because you’ve been going through a dry patch?” He shakes his head. “Chica, all artists have that sometimes. I think it’s an Official Requirement or something.”

“Really? I’m not so sure. I should be in the studio, making stuff, and then promoting it and selling it. Then I’d be a Real Artist.” I’m feeling very strongly about this, it seems. “Hang on a minute. Did you just call me ‘chica’? Since when do you speak Spanish?”

This is the set up, and she writes her way out of Scare City and into a new story first by identifying the worst that can happen: 

“Um. The sky might fall on my head. And there will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth. And doom, doom, DOOM.”

“Uh huh. Interesting.” He’s crossed one knobbly knee over the other and is stroking his scraggy beard. I think he’s been watching movies again. “And has that happened before?”

“Of course not,” I say. “But it’s a risk. It’s always a risk. You can’t be too careful.”

And there you have Victoria’s story, Scare City.  When you pull it out of the shadows by whatever means necessary (write it, draw it, sing it, dance it, tell it outloud to yourself in the mirror or to a friend who can listen without judement) you can see it for the path through Scare City that it is.

Brooke Castillo( Self Coaching 101) has a marvelous exercise for moving out of Scare City.  And she does not ask you to do it in a single bound (whether or not you are SuperWoman.  Who knows, you may have kryptonite to close by – so she gives you a way to take that first small baby step).  Based on Byron Katie’s Work, Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life, Brooke asks:  is it true (i.e., will the sky indeed fall on your head?); how do you feel when you think that (the story about the sky falling?) (your answer:  scared); how do you act when you feel that way? (unable to move because it might all fall on my head; constricted).  The story, by the way, is drama.  We are writing scenarios in our heads that have yet to happen and may never happen.  We are defaulting to the worst scenario possible (Scare City) instead of looking along the spectrum or even defaulting to the best scenario possible (total abundance).

You’ve identified the drama, now plot your path out of Scare City.  Develop the spectrum.  Look at other things that might happen.  Rewrite the ending.  It doesn’t have to be a jump-up-and-town or shout-it-from-the-rooftops ending.  Your body won’t believe it – if your body doesn’t believe it (you know that strop flip-flop), it doesn’t really matter what your head it saying.

Start with something easy.   It can be as simple as imagining an acorn falling on your head instead of the sky.  And once you get there, imagine side-stepping the acorn.  And once you are there – well, you get the drift.  The world is yours to imagine into reality!  Because we see what we expect to see.

Imagine danger?  You will surely find it because your subconscious mind will blot out anything that doesn’t match what you expect.  Really.  Not magic – that’s how you create your world.  So:  Tell me a story about how you found your way out of Scare City into generoCity and abundance.  “What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life?   The world would split open.” [ Muriel Rukeyser, Kathe Kollwitz].  And save the ghosts, goblins and looming shadows for Halloween!

Wylde Women’s Wisdom

If we choose to do so, we can turn the Trance of Scarcity into a teaching Story that will be used by future generations to explain how Stories can control our lives even on a planetary level.  We can issue a warning that shows how, unless we remain aware of Stories as what they are – just Stories and nothing more – they can take on the appearance and power of the Truth.  We can introduce a new competence to our children, colleagues, neighbors, and friends so they won’t be fooled by Stories.  Doing this, we can end the tyranny of unexamined Stories.  Victoria Castle