Singing the Blues

Remember that old song, "Can't live, when living is without you. Can't live, can't live any more!" I don't know who sang it, but today the words are running through my mind with a slight variation on the words. "Can't live, when living is focused on you."

Yeah, that's right. I admit it. I've been so damn focused on where my husband "is" right now with his spiritual path (or lack thereof) and his attitude towards life and his beliefs about God and about life, that I've not been living my life at all. In fact, I've been miserable. And I've been making him miserable. And I've been making our relationship miserable.

I'm a total believer in the fact that what we focus on expands. I know that when I am thinking about red convertibles, I definitely see more red convertibles on the road. Even if I'm not "creating" them, I'm more aware of them. In my own perception, I perceive more of them. It's now different in my relationship experience and in my life experience. The more I focus on what I don't like about how my husband is living his life and about how he is thinking and what he is believing, the more aware I become of all of this. And the more upset I become about it. And the more I see of it, and the more miserable I become. And that surely does not lead to me living my life fully at all.

So, while I was walking with a friend today, she basically told me to let my husband have his own spiritual path. She said he might not look like he's on one right now, but his questioning and his disbelief might really just be one stop on his spiritual path. She reminded me that consciousness and spirituality are all about questioning and reevaluating and coming to new understandings of our beliefs. So, if he is angry and feeling like a victim, if he want to shout at God or not believe in God, if he wants to not believe in anything right now, maybe that is just part of his spiritual path. Maybe, like Jacob, he is wrestling with God right now, or needs to. And, she said, I should be compassionate and loving until he finds his way or comes to a new understanding.

Okay. Got it. I've been one complaining, unhappy, judgemental, impatient wife (there's another word I could use, but I won't.) -- and not too spiritual either. And I've been spending all my time focused on him rather than on me, focused on what I perceive as not working, not right, not what I want rather than on what is working, what is right what is working.

Time to focus on what enlivens me, on what brings life into our relationship, on what helps me live fully. Maybe in the process, it will help him do the same. In either case, I'll stop singing the blues.

Co-Creation at Its Worst?

Ever wonder about co-creation? I don’t mean the type of co-creation we do with God. I mean the kind we do with the people in our lives. I’ve been wondering about it a lot lately.

My husband is going through a rough patch. He’s between jobs and doing consulting here and there. It’s a stressful situation, and, understandably, it doesn’t make him feel great. Despite the fact that he and I have traveled the spiritual path together for many years, and he and I learned about conscious creation, creative thought, Law of Attraction – whatever you want to call it – long ago, he tends to stop believing when things aren’t going so well. He loses faith. And when he loses faith, he tends to think a lot of negative thoughts. Given that I believe our thoughts are, indeed, creative, I have a problem with that. I don’t want his negative thoughts manifesting in my life. Yet, we share a life.

Do we, therefore, co-create the bad things that might show up in our shared life, or does he create them and I simply deal with them (and vice versa)? I know that if I worry about him creating them, I help create them. I’ve been angry about him moping around the house feeling like a victim and telling me how nothing good ever happens to him and how it “just figures” that bad things happen to him. Feeling that way doesn’t open me up to creating good things or receiving them either. So, I guess I do co-create negatively with him on some levels and in some ways.

I was on the phone with my mastermind group today, and I mentioned my issues with my husband (since the group of women happen to be some of my best friends in the world), and one of the women asked me how I was handling the situation. I said, “I just keep focusing on what I want to create and on what’s working in my life. That makes me feel better.”

You see, I know that when I feel good, I open myself up to the Divine flow of goodness available to me. I open myself up to receive what I desire. When we feel negative emotions, we close down and don’t allow ourselves to receive. We become disconnected from the Divine flow of goodness that is normally available to us.

I also know that when I focus my attention on what I want, I am likely to create it. (The same, of course, goes for focusing attention on what I don’t want.) And when I focus on what’s working, I get more of what’s working.

Maybe by doing these things I simply counterbalance my husband’s negative thinking, thereby not allowing anything bad or good to happen in our shared lives. I suppose that’s a better co-creation than some others! I’ll take it over co-creating something I don’t want!

If I focus harder than he does on what I really do want and open myself up to receiving by feeling really great and knowing in my body that all is well and that only good is coming to me, I might put so much energy into creating something positive that I negate his negative thoughts and create something positive. I suppose that wouldn’t be co-creation, would it? It would be worth creating though…

So, I guess I do believe we co-create, that what others manifest affects me and my life to some extent even if it is not something I may have consciously wanted to manifest for myself. And maybe that’s part of the Divine plan or our own individual Divine plan. Maybe that’s part of being in relationship. Maybe learning how to co-create on the physical plane simply represents part of the human experience.