It’s that time - goals, resolutions, and plans for all areas of your life for the upcoming year. I’ve checked that off. Have you? Well, having completed the exercise I later listened to a talk given by author Marianne Williamson. It was about how we should make plans from the perspective of A Course In Miracles (ACIM). Basically, you don’t. Wait. What?!
In this talk about New Year’s plans she suggests that what we really need to do is be a channel through which God’s plan can materialize. She always adds, “…however you view God.” The idea is that you and I can’t possibly know what is going to happen in the coming weeks, or even know what is best for us. God knows. He has a plan to bring more love and peace in the world at large and he needs you to do it. His plan will benefit you by bringing good things into your life and at the same time be of benefit to all those around you. It’s a win-win situation.
As a Reiki teacher and practitioner I always say that the energy does not come from me, it comes through me. Therefore, this concept of being a channel is easy for me. What isn’t easy is the idea of throwing out all my best-laid plans! Marianne suggests that there are two good reasons not to make plans. One has to do with resisting our core belief that we are constantly lacking things in life, and the other is to learn to surrender ourselves to God.
What I hear loud and clear from Marianne is that when I lay out a list of goals for my life and myself what I’m doing is really listing all the places where I feel that I lack something, or where I think I’m incomplete. I’m overweight, so I need to diet. I’m not in a relationship, so I need to find someone, or I have too many debts, so I need more money…Ack! In the long run if my core belief is that feeling of always lacking something, then even if I get the one thing that I believe will make my life complete, suddenly it won’t be enough, or I’ll sabotage it, destroy it, or not see how wonderful it really is. All this, of course, is at an unconscious level and I won’t even realize that I’m doing it.
The far better approach is to forget making plans to acquire things you think will fill the voids, the lack you think you have, and to simply surrender yourself to God. Move into the New Year with an attitude of surrender. And this doesn’t mean just saying, “Whatever is meant to happen will happen,” because that’s a cop out. That is an excuse not to do anything toward making changes. Your action will be the surrender to God each day because this will make you a channel for His good.
But why surrender? Wouldn’t God, who loves me, help me with my own plans? Maybe He can’t? When we fill up the channel with our wants and needs then what we’re actually doing is blocking the good from coming to us and through us. It might mean that you are so stuck on a certain job that you miss seeing the benefits that another position may offer. Or the relationship you want to foster remains stuck, as you cannot see past your own desires. And we get nowhere fast. However, being in a place of surrender means that we are available to the opportunities that arise in our day to day life that offer advancement for everyone.
And yes, duh, I already know this through my Reiki practice. I’m simply a channel to help clients connect to that healing energy. I have no say about where the client uses the energy in their body and the minute I think I control it is the same minute that I close the channel.
Back to Marianne and what this means in your daily life when you’d like, for instance, to earn more money, or change jobs, or have a better relationship with your spouse. I think it means that you start reminding yourself that whatever your current situation you lack nothing. You lack nothing. And if you choose to allow God to work through you each day you can bring more good into your life. You will see opportunities come up and be in a position to take advantage of them.
This is a different way of thinking, a whole new way of moving into the New Year. Are you game?