Welcome to the new normal

The photo I’ve attached to this post may at first seem incredibly irrelevant to the topic of this writing however let me assure you it’s profoundly important.

For those of you who may be reading this in a version without the photo it is a shot of Halloween decorations outside the administrative building of a resort in Kissimmee, Florida where I am currently staying.

I’ve just finished teaching a Reiki Level 1 and 2 workshop in Orlando (Kissimmee to be exact) and am spending my Monday relaxing and catching up on emails. My “office” is a patio table and umbrella by a lagoon shaped pool. If it gets a little warm basking in the 88 degree temps I can hop in the pool to cool off.

The thing I am most amazed at is how normal this feels.

Three years ago, almost to the day, I taught my first Reiki workshop in Florida. It was at this very resort and I vividly remember looking at the same decorations in the  front yard. My first teaching trip here was like going to the moon. I remember how surreal it all felt as I walked around the grounds, took periodic dips in the pool, and strolled through the one bedroom condo that was my home for the week I was here. You see, people like me didn’t do this kind of “stuff”. Yet here I was. To top it all off, I was  “working” here.

I had chosen to dream of it about a year earlier and every time I would look at the photo of the lagoon shaped pools posted on the hotel’s website and visualize myself sitting by it, it launched a vigorous assault to my sensibilities. Oh I talked about it,  visualized it just like you’re supposed to. I read the books, and listened to the workshops telling how all things were possible. I had even experienced flavourings of it on different occasions. But this? This was so far outside my normal that no matter how hard I tried it just didn’t seem real.

Yet I persisted. I kept choosing to believe it was true.  I keep learning and practicing and growing.

And it finally happened. I remember walking around the grounds the last day I was here choosing, dreaming, and hoping that I would return. That trips like this would become a regular event. That they would become normal. That was even further into the realms of fantasy and delusion. Sure it may happen once, even twice, but to be a regular occurrence? To be normal? I don’t think so!

The months passed by after returning and slowly but surely the desires of travelling and teaching continued to grow and manifest. One by one, workshops would appear, like the smattering of rain drops that at first go almost un-noticed yet are the forbearers of an approaching thunderstorm. Each and every time I would feel the full body sensation of excitement and disbelief that it had happened again.

Then, without any warning, the sensation vanished. It was at a workshop in San Jose in January of 2013. Where I live in western Canada January weather is a mixture of way below freezing temperatures, ice, snow, and cold, cold, cold. In a matter of hours I went from an environment of -20 degrees to + 18. As I stood in the window of my hotel suite and watched the palm trees gracefully dancing with the wind  I noticed something different. Not in them but in me. That cocktail of excitement and giddiness of being somewhere people like me weren’t supposed to be wasn’t there.

Interestingly my first response was to feel guilty.

I should be appreciating the blessing of what the experience was offering. So many people dream of a life style like this. I know I did, and now I’m living it. Not once or twice but on a very regular basis.

Then the revelation hit me like a ton of bricks. The reason I wasn’t feeling anything other than normal was because this was now my new normal.  For “people like me” this was now a very normal experience. It was perfectly normal to travel through-out Canada and the United States teaching and sharing what I have been given to share. To meditate on a mountain one weekend and feel the waves of the pacific ocean washing over my feet the next. To bundle up in a touque and scarf and wander out to grab my morning coffee in down town Toronto and the next week apply sun block to my sparsely populated head <grin> so I didn’t get sunburn while walking along side the ocean in southern Florida.

Here’s the really cool thing that happens when your normal changes. Now, every time a workshop manifests in an exotic and exciting location I don’t say Holy Smokes! I say “Well yah, that’s exactly what I would expect to happen”. That’s now normal for me. It wasn’t at one time but it is now.

Your template of what is normal is very powerful and plays a key role in the everyday experiences you have. You don’t have to try and “make” them happen. They just do. Somewhere along the line you have accepted different versions of normal for your life. Some you like, some you don’t.

The good news is that while they are incredibley powerful, they are also very intelligent and can be changed. Without limitation, and even the remotest understanding of what is reasonable or even possible for someone like you. There is no such thing as too big, too much, or too extravagant. They will take whatever instructions we give them and if we persist in exhibiting to them that we are serious about change, will change.

It may not be easy or instant but it is, without question, possible. Even inevitable.

It all depends on you. How bad do you want it? Bad enough to believe on the inside and take steps on the outside even though it doesn’t make sense and borders on ridiculous? Bad enough to keep on doing it for however long it takes no matter what?

Your normal won’t be convinced easily. It’s probably seen you talk the talk and maybe even walk the walk for a short while and then return to what they have been taught is normal. You are going to have to prove to them, and yourself, that you are serious.

If you do. If you persist. You can change your normal into whatever you wish it to be.

When that happens, what once was a fantasy now becomes your new reality.

Kind of worth the effort, don’t ya think?