Putting on my big girl panties

“Argue for your limitations, and sure enough they’re yours.” – Richard Bach

When I was a kid, I loved playing hide-and-go-seek. One of us would be “it” and the rest of us would hide in mom’s closet, underneath the coffee table or, if we were playing outside, behind the neighbor’s shed.

The whole point was to find someone who wasn’t really missing. One exuberant “olly-olly-oxen-free” was all it took to reunite all the players.

ACIM Lesson 24 contends: I do not perceive my own best interests.

The world we perceive is like a game of hide-and-go-seek. We think we’re here to find all the things that are missing.

We think our best interest is to spend our lives looking for problems and devising plans to make them right.  We think our best interest is to follow seven steps to financial freedom or three steps to being highly effective or to mastering the perfect bod.

In other words, we perceive problems, limitations, things that need fixing.

But what if our best interest is to recognize that nothing is missing? To admit that it only appears missing because we spend our time looking for it.

When I say, “I want this,” it makes the assumption I don’t already have it.

When I say, I need to be healthier or more spiritual, I embark on a journey to find the very things that are already my birthright.

It is only my decision to seek something that makes me perceive that it’s concealed.

Course in Miracles reminds us that we already have all the love, all the abundance, all the joy we need. And at any time, we can quit playing pretend and just say “thank you!”

As Robert Scheinfield says, “We are all quantum special effects animators.

I can pretend to be lacking. Profess the need to be skinnier. Or wealthier. Or shacking up with Mr. Right.

Or I can acknowledge that I’m the one who made the obstacle course. And call olly-olly-oxen-free.

And with that I’ll end with this excerpt from E-Cubed:

Peter Jackson was paid $20 million for the script of King Kong.

You’re not getting paid to create drama, so methinks it’s time to write a different script.

Here’s how:

1.Give yourself an Academy Award for the amazing “drama” you’ve created thus far. In a world that brims with beauty and plenitude, the fact that you have been able to create such a convincing “story” of lack and struggle is truly an accomplishment. The special effects you have employed to overlook the world’s unending largesse are truly mind-bending. Take a bow and ask yourself, “If I have been this successful at creating separation and pain (and believe me, we’re all worthy of gold medals), then what else might I create with a little imagination?”

2. Use the feeling for rocket fuel. Once you get it that everything is your creation, you can use that intense feeling to propel you into a different story. The only reason you’re still starring in the same, worn-out show (it should have been canceled in 1998 when Seinfeld went off the air) is because you’ve pitched a tent. You’ve completely forgotten that there are lots of other destinations on the map. Because you endlessly harp about where you are and what’s going wrong, you’ve driven in the stakes. At any time, you can move to a different location, a different story, a different reality.

3. Zip it up. You may not like the site of your present tent, but there is no need to tell the world about it. No matter where you’re camped, there are blessings and miracles nearby. Instead of bellyaching about the script, the campsite, the life you’re currently experiencing, focus in on everything that’s going right. Once you begin to use your laser superpowers for possibilities, miracles, and joy, you will suddenly find yourself on a whole new stage, accepting a whole new Oscar.

Pam Grout is the author of 19 books including E-Squared, E-Cubed, Thank & Grow Rich and her new book, Art & Soul,Reloaded: A Year-Long Apprenticeship to Summon the Muses and Ignite Your Daring, Audacious, Creative Side,