When the Virgin Mary is on your front porch

I wish I could show you, when you are lonely or in the darkness, the astonishing light of your own being. – Hafiz

In every workshop or retreat I have taught at, every online group I have been part of, and every gathering of women, the question of deserving has always come up.

The more I think about it, the more I think that this is the biggest block to us following our dreams.

We think we don’t deserve them.

We believe that we aren’t good enough to deserve love/ good things/ magic/ miracles because of something that happened in our past, and it’s just being proven to us by our new belief in the Law of Attraction.

Because now if bad things happen, or good things don’t happen, not only do I not deserve it because I am somehow a bad person/ unlovable, I am also to blame because I didn’t believe or attract enough. It’s a double-dose of un-deserving.

So no matter what, we suck. It’s bloody exhausting, but we keep doing it – believing in our undeservingness – and beating ourselves to an emotional pulp. So let’s do an experiment and try something else for a minute, because, as Dr. Phil would say: ‘How’s that working for ya?’

When people talk to me about us moving here, they get a funny look in their eye and they tell me how brave or how lucky or even how crazy we are. Know what? We’re not. We are scared. We are freaking out. We look at each other and question our decision every single day. But we never questioned – not once – whether or not we deserved to want this.

Why? Because I choose to no longer believe in the concept of deserving. It definitely doesn’t make things easier, but it sure makes things better.

The change happened for me when I decided to play with believing in a benevolent universe. I started asking, ‘what if?’ What if I deserve to follow my dreams just because I am here? What if I am allowed to believe in miracles just because I got born? What if I am a deeply loved, held, and a tiny piece of the divine having a human experience?

What if there was actually no such thing as not deserving? What then?

Adding ‘what if’ to any thought makes it much more playful. You aren’t committing to the thought, you are just checking it out. Your brain begins to look for answers; for proof. It doesn’t like not knowing something. And as you let yourself play with what ifs, the world opens up and the what ifs get deeper, richer, and more powerful – until you find yourself asking, ‘what if we were to totally change our lives. What then?’

So what if the universe/ the divine/ God/ Goddess/ spirit/ or even the Virgin Mary was actually present in your life all of the time as a loving presence? What would you do differently? What if you and Mary had a standing date for tea and all she ever wanted to do was talk about how beloved you are; not because of something you did or didn’t do, and regardless of what was going on in your life. Would you look at her and tell her all of the ways it wasn’t true? Or would you believe her because – well – she’s the Virgin Mary? What if, just for a moment at a time, you played with believing that it was true?

So I’ll ask you again:

What if there was no such thing as not deserving? What then?

xo