I simply love that - perhaps because without realizing it, I've been doing that for a full eight and a half years since 9/11, and since I woke up and decided to transform my (messy) life and career.  I had, and still have, a good deal of mess to transform into messages!

 

This week, I had a powerful shifting realization, thanks again to my dear friend and financial consultant Denise Hughes, that one of my most intractable "messes" is around my resistance to "ease."  Ease is not something that has been a part of my professional identity or life.  In my twenty-seven years as a contributive professional, there's been nothing easy about it. 

 

Sure, I've achieved things I'm very proud of and excited about, and I've met many of my large goals.  But still - I can't say that any of it came "easily."  No way, no how.

 

This week, as I was exploring the idea of ease and why I resist it so fiercely, I had a very painful memory flash.  It was of my early teen life.  I recalled clearly how someone close to me used to say to me (and to everyone else) in a very critical and hateful tone, "Everything comes so easily to Kathy." 

 

This person used to brandish those words like a weapon, as if it were a terrible thing to have an easy life, and that it simply wasn't fair, because her life was hard.  The implication was that God shined his light on me, and cruelly bypassed her, leaving her thwarted and miserable. 

 

As I tossed this memory around in my mind, I experienced the real 'aha'- I realized that all these years - my whole 49 years on this planet -- I've internalized the belief that if things come easily to me, then I don't deserve them.  Wow...

 

Believing I'm not deserving of ease has two damaging aspects -  first, deep down, it tricks me into believing that I don't deserve all the good that I've created or attracted.  Secondly, it traps me in a fearful place, worried that others will judge me negatively, hold me apart from themselves, be envious of me, and think I am not worthy of what I have.

 

Well...I can tell you that as of this minute, I'm DONE with my resistance to ease.  Done, gone, finished.  I'm shifting it consciously.  Be gone!

 

Here's what my spirit knows to be true - When things come easily, it means you are in the flow - of life, of yourself, of your soul and spirit.  It's not a bad thing that things come easily to you.  It's supposed to be easy.  When you have ease, it means that you have consciously and completely given up your resistance to ease, and your attachment to struggle.

 

Each day, I receive an inspirational email message from a neat group - Mike Dooley's TUT Adventurers Club - and recently got this message worth savoring and embracing:

 

 

 

(From Mike Dooley's Notes from the Universe)

 

 

I'd add this - if ease is not your experience, there's most likely something blocking you from believing you deserve or want ease. 

 

Please take the time this week to dig deep and explore what might be keeping you from believing you can and will have ease from this moment forward, and that having ease is what you deserve.  You are strong enough to have ease, and to handle the envy of others who don't.

 

1) Bring to mind those in your life who seem to "have it easy."  Are you happy for them, or jealous, angry, resentful?  (If you're envious or critical of them, most likely you want what they have, but think you can't get it.).  In your view, what separates you from those who have it easy?  Are you able to revise your view today, and accept that ease CAN be your reality?

 

2) Think back to your childhood - what was your experience around ease?  Did you have it, and were folks around you angry that you did?  Did your "ease" make you feel separate from others, and a bit ashamed or guilty for how easy things came? Or did ease come naturally to others, but not you?  Did your parents experience ease or struggle in life, overall?  Knowing what formed your perception of ease can help you shift it.

 

3) Know your current beliefs around ease - do you mistakenly believe, as I did, that an easy life means you don't deserve it?  Are you attached to struggle somehow?  If so, it's time to disengage from struggle.

 

4) Examine the friends and family around you - do these individuals feel that life in general is a constant struggle for them, or easy?  If it's a struggle for them, find some new friends who resonate with ease, so you can have role models for how ease truly works in our lives.

 

5) Gain empowering help and perspective - find a new friend, mentor, role model or coach who can help you identify what you really want in life (how 'bout more ease, joy and success?), and help you get on the path to creating it.

 

6) Say YES! to ease - observe your thoughts vigilantly each day for one week.  Each time a "struggle-based" thought comes into your mind, make a mental check-mark and say to yourself, "There goes one of those struggling thoughts."  Then let it go, with love and compassion.  You are not your thoughts - you can change them.

 

Again, it's up to you...

 

Ease is beautiful, perfect, and as it should be, for you and for me.  Let's allow it into our lives, together, now.