In the Power of Holy Language (audio programme) Caroline Myss describes her metaphor of the 12 storey building in New York. The tale goes like this. Caroline goes to visit a friend in NY on a hot August day. The streets are thick with heat, pollution and noise, and the clamour of hot, frustrated drivers and pedestrians. She enters the building her friend lives in. She gets in the lift and goes up 12 stories to her friend’s penthouse. The views are amazing – you can see the Hudson river, the air is sweet, the light is bright, the balcony is a mini-central park… heaven.
Realisation: this is the very same address as the apartment on the ground floor amidst the noise, heat and clamour, with no views and no light. But on the penthouse level, it’s a completely different experience. Same address; radically different experiences.
The metaphor: We live in our lives like we live in a 12 storey building. We can abide in the hot, dark ground floor; or in the cool, airy penthouse; or anywhere in between. The work of life is to feel good enough about ourselves, and to be willing to ‘pay the price’, to move upstairs a storey, again and again and again…
What could I know, do or ponder on that would help me move up a storey in my own life? Yesterday, the roadmap out of this pandemic lockdown was announced. We have five more weeks of this hard but precious ‘stay-at-home’ protocol (til 29 March); seven more weeks til non-essential shops reopen and outdoor dining is allowed; and four more months before most restrictions on social contact are lifted (21 June). How can I optimise the value of this exceptional time to reflect, review, tweak, and ‘storey up’?
Go the Stillpoint, your internal ‘placenta’ where you can intermingle your consciousness with your eternal knowing.
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- Cease describing your ground floor flat. Move out already.
- Start ‘acting as if’ you live in your penthouse.
So if I lived in my penthouse I would…
- move more gracefully and peacefully
- spend time minimising and organising and putting things out of sight
- I’d give more precedent to light
- I’d emphasise the orientation of my furniture to looking outwards, to the views
- I’d float about with poise and purpose
- I’d honour the space, and myself in it
- I’d be grateful for my space
Thinking of Minimalist Melody who inspired (and baffled) me for years with her simple, graceful, focussed (penthouse-esque) living approach wherever she was… I just looked her up… omg… she left YouTube in Dec19… and is now on IG being… a trainee PILOT.
Organise your today so that your tomorrow can unfurl sooner.
I need a VA to expand and consolidate and safeguard my business…
Are you willing to pay for such a person? As CMyss says, you need to be willing to pay for the next storey up. Catch 22, or… proof of concept.
Yes… I know I’m trying to bootstrap all the time. Maybe I should do an actual business budget for 2021/2. And personal budget… Get on top on money in/out for me and for business. THAT would change the goals I would set for myself in terms of how I sell my services and products.
Organise your today so that your tomorrow can unfurl sooner. ‘Level up. Level up.’ It is in no one’s interests for you to stay where you are and complain about it.
Yes.
Get clear about your future. Get clear. That vision board. Do a Melody.
What are your dreams? Articulate them. Visualise them. Don’t hold back! Ask for what you want. That is basically THE KEY lesson of this age. Can’t you see that yet? For your conflict resolution clients. For your workplaces rife with mental ill health. They all are missing that key: Ask for what you want. And as NVC would put it, this isn’t just about wants, it’s about human needs, which include adventure, fulfilment, feeling valued. What does everyone want? Expansion! And what is expansion? Moving up a storey in your own building! There’s no need to move house…! Just level up in your own home. Stop looking at the world out of your street-level letter box…:
…when you can go to your penthouse and marvel at the vistas…!
This is not a financial procedure so much as a consciousness shift. It starts in you, and then out-manifests… maybe into a new penthouse home, but more fundamentally in to a more expansive life. Get it?
Yes.
So move your mind to your penthouse suite. Ok, dear heart?
I will do that thing! I will play with that today and learn and learn…
I am penthouse-living
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Creative Impulse: Vision Board 2021 album in my phone