You have to Show Up

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I was recently reminded of an age old saying, ‘What’s for me, won’t go by me’.

 

It’s comforting, bringing a sense of hope, and, it’s a crock of shit.

 

Ok maybe it is true. Maybe it’s not.

 

Surely you have to show up and take action if you want your life to take a certain road?

 

Because what if “What’s for me won’t go by me”, has you sitting for things to just arrive and leads to a life of missed opportunities?

 

What if all kinds of things are indeed going by me?

 

My experience with “What’s for me won’t go by me” was at a point in my life where for a long time I was single. I can remember being very clear that I wanted to meet someone. I really did.

 

I was completing my mastery to be a monk, sat with my fellow monks in a Reflection Circle, a time for pure unedited practice of ruthless compassion.

 

One particular day someone said, ‘I hear you say that you want to meet someone, but I don’t believe you’.

 

WHAT? I knew I really wanted to meet someone. What were they talking about? (My mind was already muttering, ‘Clearly they are only training to be a monk and not a real one. What do they know?’).

 

(Clearly, they were only TRAINING to be a monk and not a real one my mind muttered).

 

They continued.

 

‘When you speak, I’m curious, because even though you say you want to meet someone, you seem to spend all of your time in one single place.

 

You’re always at work. All of your focus is on work, your passion, your anchor, it’s in work, and yet you say that you want a relationship? You’re already in one. It’s called WORK”.

 

It landed really clunkily. My defenses were up. I. don’t. like. this. ‘Monk-y’. Business. At. All.

 

Eventually, sitting in that uncomfortable space, I saw they were right.

 

I was saying that I really wanted to find a partner, yet all of my life was set up predominantly with one focus. Every part of me was spending all of my time, energy and focus at work.

 

And then, the meditations were saying something else. Something very odd.

 

It kept coming to me.

 

’You need to get a dog’.

 

What?

 

Me get a dog? I had never had a dog before. I didn’t even like dogs!

 

I didn’t know the first thing about dogs.

 

I definitely couldn’t have one. I own a home with a complete and immaculate white interior.

 

This was a bad, bad, ‘please go away’ type of thought.

 

Followed quickly by this:

 

‘I can’t have a dog; I work all the time’, ‘this dog is going to have to fit in with this lifestyle, that will never work’.

 

Which is when it hit me.

 

‘I WORK ALL THE TIME’.

 

Ah.

 

It was like I had written a letter to God saying, “I want a relationship, on my terms please. Whoever this person is needs to fit in with my life exactly the way it is. And they need to have this size, shape and personality.’

 

I started to see, as much as I loved my life, it was one dimensional. I had spent a long time, a lifetime, following one well-worn path. It was time for something new.

 

To see what would emerge when I said, ‘I’m entirely open to creating something different’.

 

I made a bold decision. I was breaking up with work.

 

Of course, there’s a whole story in that single sentence. For this blog, what matters is this:

 

Literally the week after leaving work, I was walking down the street with Muffin (yes, I got the dog – a WHITE dog!) and another dog came sideways out of the blue and started sniffing her bum.

 

I couldn’t help myself, ‘Oh, no, no, no, no, we don’t do that!’

 

A voice in response, ’I think you’ll find that’s what dogs do’.

‘Not to my Muffin’ replied my best prim, proper and slightly disapproving voice.

 

I looked up to see a guy laughing at me. ‘You’ve never had a dog before, have you?’.

 

More words. Laughter. I walked away whispering to Muffin, my new best pal, ’something’s just happened, I don’t know what, but something has’. I could feel the excitement in the experience. Like a new door had opened.

 

One conversation led to a friendship, within six months a relationship, and as it unfolded, a marriage.

Why do I share all of this?

 

Every day for three years I unknowingly drove past Andy’s house to work.  Every day I drove over the bridge, while his house was literally under it.

 

“What’s for me won’t go by me” they say?

 

I was passing him every single day!

 

I believed I was showing up, but here’s the deeper truth. I was just pretending to. Like many, I wasn’t clear on what I really wanted. I had a split desire.

 

We want this, but we also want that. It’s not clear, it’s almost like God, The Universe, (use your word), is up in the clouds asking, ‘Er come on give me a clue. We’re getting mixed messages up here….what do you really want?’.

 

When you start to look at your life you might start to see a huge amount of control, a whole lot of Doing and micro-managing, and not much noticing that you’re not creating what you say you want after all. If it’s not what you want, it’s time to WAKE UP.

 

Align your thoughts, words and actions in congruence with what you really want, otherwise it all gets very muddled indeed.

 

So, sorry not sorry, I don’t believe “What’s for you won’t go by you”.

 

It could be going past you right now, and you wouldn’t see it if your attention and where you’re putting your energy isn’t aligned to it.

 

You want a job that fulfils you? You want a meaningful relationship where you truly share your lives?

 

Or do you just want all your terms and conditions fulfilled?

 

My experience is that most of us are so busy with all the things, we’re not aware of what’s right in front of us or we even actively choose not to recognise something is indeed for us.

 

I was in a world of pain in that old life and I still didn’t want to see it.

 

Start looking for the signs. Believe them.

 

Create a life where you are curious, excited, available to see it and crucially willing to trust.

 

The message in my meditation was clear – it starts with a dog.

 

I didn’t know a dog would be the key. I simply chose to pay attention to the sign and allowed it to flow from there.

 

If I hadn’t? In a nano second, I could have walked past this guy, my husband, and not spoken with him. I could have not even been there because I didn’t have a dog in the first place. I could have driven over a bridge a zillion more times to an all-consuming job and not even looked down. Let’s be honest, I didn’t even notice any of the 40 minutes journey most days.

 

It’s a wee bit like sliding doors.

 

You have to be in the moment, and in the moment. You have to see it.

 

“What’s for me won’t go by me” leads us to be passive, it causes us to drift rather than to get in motion. To put a stake in the ground and take a step. To stop up balancing all the things, aligning all the options and to simply make a choice. It stops us remembering we are powerful creators and that anything can happen if I only show up.

 

The idea of balancing all the things and saying ‘okay, I want this but I also want that, and I need to work this out’, is a life of control, it has you taking the magic out.

 

YOU are taking the magic out.

 

Elizabeth Gilbert, one of my favourite people once said, “You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestation of your own blessings”.

 

I LOVE that.

 

You have to participate.

 

You have to show up.

 

You have to claim it.

 

Get out of your head and stop weighing up the pros and cons. Say, ‘you know what, I don’t give a shit, I know that I want it and I’ll work it out. I can make this happen’.

 

You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestation of your own blessings, and your dreams.

 

 “What’s for you will not go by you” is one of those things that people say when you get disappointing news. For some of us, it’s just a nice way of saying, ‘never mind’ or, ‘it’ll all work out the way it should’.  

 

Don’t choose to live your life from that space.

 

Instead let’s go ALL IN and choose, play, laugh and love.

 

And before you start with “but Nic, I don’t know how!”, commit to this:

 

Be a little more YOU every day.

 

Let’s create a remarkable life together.

 

Nic x

 

Ps Muffin now has a wee sister, Crumpet. Of course.

 

 

 

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