MIRACLE THINKING

When Sandy asks me what I would like to talk about, often the words come from me before I even plan them. I okayed this date with Sandy & she emailed me to ask, “What will you talk about?” I immediately typed “Miracle Thinking.” Then I looked at my computer, and said to myself, “miracle thinking?”

I had just heard a radio interview of Randy Peyser talking about her new book “the Power of Miracle Thinking.” I was taken with the phrase & I was impressed with the interview. When I thought it over, I realized that I’ve been doing Miracle Thinking for awhile now.

Of course I wasn’t always like this. Somewhere the switch flipped from negative to positive & it ain’t never going back. I know that now. Some years ago, you wouldn’t have convinced me of any reality about the results of positive thinking even with a hypnotist in the room waving a watch, saying “you are getting sleepy.”

What’s a miracle? The Spanish word for sight is “mira”, so could a miracle simply be a different way of seeing things? I think it must be. I know once I move out from the surprise, kind of back up with the camera, a really wide angle emerges. When I can get the panoramic view, I have it made. The water changes to wine with a snap! And with all my experience, I’m still surprised to drink from the glass.

Sometimes miracles happen even when I’m clearly not in a state to anticipate them. When I graduated massage school in Albuquerque in 1996, I was living with a woman named Nancy. I came later to call Nancy “my roommate from hell” & she kindly reciprocated by proving that out to me in no uncertain terms. And I’m sure I reciprocated the title right back at her. Of course, Nancy was one of my best teachers.

Nancy knew a woman named Ruth. Ruth lived in Montana & wished to open a community for women healers. I had spent five months living in an intentional community in upstate New York & I loved the idea! And I felt I was a healer, hey, I just graduated massage school, yea?

Nancy & I shared a lot of fear & upset on that trip from Albuquerque to Montana. I had a vehicle; she didn’t. She sprained her ankle two days before we were to leave, I could climb on top of the car to pack stuff. She was getting unemployment while I had no visible means of support, having just graduated from being a starving student, to being a starving graduate. So after living together for six weeks in a room in Missoula, Montana, I finally got a job. In my LIFE, it’d never taken me six weeks to get a job. I knew Nancy was running really low on any desire to have me around and our disagreements were escalating. That second day I came home from work, which was third shift waitress at a diner, she said she wanted me packed, out, and gone by noon that day.

My Divine Planners make a habit of staying ahead of me by a few steps. Even then, I knew she didn’t want me around anymore. My greatest fear in life was to be homeless so I had big backpack of denial I was carrying around. Did I bring on an eviction with thinking those thoughts? Maybe. But my antennae were out & I had investigated renting a room. I just needed more money than I had in hand at that moment. Later, getting thrown out of our little apartment would become the best thing in the world for me, but in the thin moment of her telling me to be gone by 12 & slamming the door to go visit Ruth while I packed, I considered my options through the adrenaline rush. I had made $35 in tips over the two nights I’d worked. I’d given Nancy $5 toward what I owed her – totally a token payment, but I was six weeks without any cash & feeling pretty needy.

When I looked into renting that room, I found out I needed $130 to move in. So, I had $30. Now, one week earlier, before I’d scored my waitress gig, I’d written to a friend in Jersey to ask if he could spare $50 to help me buy gas so I could look for a job.

I was muttering to myself while I packed; I figured I at least had enough on hand to find a campground to stay in. After about ten minutes of mushing my stuff into big gray tubs, there was a loud knocking on the door. I was already aggravated, & got even angrier as I yanked it open, figuring Nancy’d forgotten her key, wanted me out on this abbreviated timeline & now was making me stop packing to let her in. I was astonished to find the FedEx guy outside who handed me a cardboard envelope & that signature device they use. I scribbled my name & ripped open the tab of the envelope. There was a $100 bill inside from my friend; no note, no words, just a Ben Franklin from someone I had not been the kindest to when I last saw him. So how much money did I have? How much money did I need? And I love telling this story because each time I do, I am beautifully assured that the universe loves me enough to rescue me from myself. In that teaching moment, I learned my biggest fear was nothing that couldn’t be handled with love.

Miracle thinking gets easier each time a miracle happens. I stopped calling it “universe” & started calling it “youniverse” right then.

Randy Peyser’s book is mostly stories, anecdotes & ideas about how to get over yourself by reaching out for the best that is out there every time. I’m happy to say that just about everything in here is something I’ve practiced at some point. I have had miracles greet me at every turn & I make so many wrong turns my GPS stutters its directions.

Randy’s first notation is choose to be #1. The Japanese call it “Ichiban.” Number one. Are you number one in your own mind? And if you’re not, I hope you feel really guilty whenever someone says, “Well, you have to put the oxygen mask on yourself first.” Because that is so TRUE! If you are not coming from a position of personal power that is rooted in personal worth, YOUR GPS probably isn’t going to work well at all.

From this internal strength & worth, from this place of belonging in the youniverse, you can ask for anything. If it’s right for you & if the timing is right for you, and if you have asked for it from a deeply felt understanding that it IS God’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom, it’s yours. Where is that worth & worthiness in you? If you had to understand it in the form of a standardized measurement, are you living at 100%? Yes? No? What percentage are you living at? If you’re at 50%, how do you feel when you get half a miracle? Not me, baby. Recently I was at volunteer thank you dinner & when the hosts said they were having a raffle based on our ticket numbers, my first reaction was a mild, “wonder what I won.” My number was the first called & I won two tickets to ClearSpace Theatre.

Which leads to another of Randy’s premises: youniverse never says “yes…but” We say yes but all the time. We say, “Oh, sure I’d like to win the lottery, but that’ll never happen to me.” Or “I’d love to meet a terrific person in my life, but I don’t want my heart to get broken again.” 50% anyone?

You can’t find a miracle sitting in your easy chair, eating Doritos, watching TV & wishing for something different. Sorry, but you need to get off your duff & get out there & happen to life like you’ve wanted life to happen to you. You’ve gotta find the miracle you want by offering yourself up to it. And you have to allow the miracle. How many times has someone offered you something terrific & you’ve said, “oh, no, I couldn’t accept that!” I can’t tell you the number of times someone’s told me they’re hurting & could really use a massage so I say, “sure, come see me.” And I never hear from them. Of course the first reaction is usually about money; but even when I say, just come see me, no charge! No call. In my opinion, it’s no insult to be offered a gift. Often the giver has a real need to even offer. I have had to retrain myself to simply say, “Why Thank You So Much!” when I am offered an unexpected gift.

I am still learning to be a good receiver & that being in receivership doesn’t mean I’m bankrupt at all. Need some practice? Here’s an exercise offered in the Abraham writings by Esther Hicks where Abraham recommends writing fake checks. He says to get your abundance muscles going, work them out by using an old checkbook to write yourself a check for some wonderful amount, say, a million dollars. Then focus your attention on what you would do with a million dollars. Of course, Sandy & I know Unity of Rehoboth Beach would be your first choice to give some to, am I right?

Next day, write a check for two million. What’ll you do with that? Make a list! I got up to about 16 million before I simply got tired of giving away money. By then, I had the idea well-fixed that I wouldn’t be keeping much of it, so I figured I was copacetic with the idea of sharing it. Do this! It will awaken your abundance in a real way that’s also a feel-good, fun exercise! There’s a story told that one night in 1990 when Jim Carrey was a struggling young comic trying to make his way in Los Angeles, he drove his old, beat-up Toyota to the top of a hill. While sitting there, broke, looking down over the city, and dreaming of his future, he wrote himself a check for $10 million, put in the notation line ‘for acting services rendered,’ and dated it for Thanksgiving 1995. He stuck that check in his wallet – and the rest, as they say, is history.

By 1995, Jim had seen the tremendous success of Ace Ventura, Pet Detective, The Mask and my personal favorite, Liar, Liar. His per film fee at that point had escalated to $20 million.

Visualize what you want. Sit still & feel how it feels to have what you want. World Peace? High-heeled sneakers? New golf clubs? How does it feel to be pulling those puppies around the golf course right now? Empower the feeling to bring it alive. Love the idea into being!

Always think in terms of this or something better. When I found the apartment I’m living in, the landlord said he had a few more people to interview before offering it, but he’d be in touch. Well, I felt pretty strongly in my gut it was mine – it’s the ideal size, it had absolutely everything on my list but one thing – remember the list, people? And when I make a list, I include everything on it. I even use a steno pad so I can have two columns. Still, when he said he had to talk to others, all my doubts rose up – did I make enough money? Was I ever going to get my own place? Apartments aren’t easy to come by near the shore, they’re either outrageously priced for a single person or simply not available. As I drove away from this gorgeous place what came into my head was the phrase: “this, or something better.” And I felt great again. I didn’t know what could be better than having an apartment over Derrickson Creek with everything I wanted, but I knew that it would have to be really spectacular. And I was comforted by that thought: Wow! What could be better? All right!

Another story: when I realized I wanted to travel cross-country, I wished for a van. I made a list of everything the van would have. The last requirement was that it be blue b/c I’ve always wanted a blue car. I had a small inheritance from my Mom to use. I focused on the van, I prayed, I visualized myself driving it, sitting up there over the road… no van. Weeks passed & the summer was ending & I had to get on the road soon and…no van. So I reviewed the list. I erased the “blue van” from it. Within a week I had a maroon van & the prior owner was a short man, so I didn’t even have to adjust the driver’s seat.

If you are stuck with a picture of something you don’t want, or if you are experiencing a health challenge, don’t hesitate to ask the Big Eraser to come in. My sister experienced this. When a loved one she knew sustained terrible, disfiguring burns, she went to see him in hospital. He passed away from his injuries, but Teri was left with an awful image of someone she dearly loved. One day when she just couldn’t seem to get this picture out of her head & was again choking up about it, a huge pencil came into her mind, turned itself over & rubbed out the image top to bottom. She never experienced seeing her dear one that way again & now remembers this person only as the beautiful spirit he was. Youniverse will take care of you!

Bring Joy into your alignment with life. Youniverse likes a good target; make it easy to find you. “Hey, over here, good things! Yeah, me! I’m the one living rightly, I’m the happy person who found the pony in the room full of manure…c’mon down, I’m SO ready to be gifted by your presence.”

The best part is youniverse always has a bigger plan for you than you have for yourself. It isn’t about having the right answer so much as it’s about asking the Right Question. Randy tells the story of the people who bought their dream cottage & within two weeks uncovered a plumbing problem. The difficulty was located in a place impossible to reach which would require them to remove the entire back wall of the house. The wife decided to not even bring this situation up to her husband as a problem. Instead she said to him, “We are expecting a miracle.” On the second day of asking around if anyone knew a good plumber, they found a man who not only had heard of this kind of blockage, but had designed a snake which would fit into the problem area. No wall takedown required. They refocused problem thinking & simply expected a miracle. Youniverse provided one.

Lighten up & just do it: live your joy in life, don’t dip your happiness into the misery of another – that’s like getting the candle burning & dropping it into the sea.

If all this sounds like the impossible dream, stay awake.

So, take a deep breath & listen with both ears as I finish the story I started at the beginning of this talk. Here’s how one miracle fuels another. In the room of the house I stayed in after I left Nancy, there were many things Youniverse gave to me. A calendar of Ansel Adams photos – breathtaking. Books & cassettes which had been abandoned. Most intriguing to me was a pair of really good sneakers, but I’m a size 8 & these were 9’s. I kept them anyway, thinking maybe I could just wear two pairs of socks. These were expensive sneakers, well made, very sturdy. But time passed by & after I’d been at the house for a few weeks, one day the phone rang & it was my dear friends, Ed Douglass & Jerry Small. Ed asked me how much longer I was going to stay in Montana. I told him I had no plans to return to New Mexico – but what I didn’t mention was that it was only ‘cause I was mortally embarrassed to have made such a mess when I’d told Ed & Jerry both how well I was going to do up there. Here I was waitressing the midnight shift, barely getting to do any massage. I couldn’t face going back to ABQ to tell my friends how much I had disappointed myself by leaving there. But when Jerry insisted “Ed, tell her WHY you called” and Ed said, “Carol, I have cancer. I want you to come back to work on me.” I simply said, “Ed, I’ll be there in two weeks.” And I started packing once again. I had lots to think about on those 1,100 miles. And I got to travel back through some of the most beautiful country these eyes will ever see, down through Utah’s Moab Valley, visiting Canyonlands & Arches National Park.

The night after I’d returned, I drove over to La Montanita for some health foods for the larder. A woman was sitting barefoot in the parking lot, begging everyone to give her shoes. “They took my shoes,” she said to me as I walked by. “What size?” I asked. “Size 9,” she replied. “Just a sec,” I said. And walked back to the van to get those sneakers.

I like to think Youniverse offered me the opportunity to be her miracle.

Think love, think empowerment & most of all, think MIRACLES!

Thank you.