I want you, for a moment, to imagine your ideal life. Be realistic - we both know that winning the lotto isn’t likely, nor is turning into a mermaid or finding an elixir of eternal youth. An ideal life isn’t perfect or free of hardship, but it’s one that consists of the things that bring you joy, the people that lift you up, and experiences that are rich and meaningful.
Now, imagine that this life is behind a door. I’d like you to try to envision this door, and look upon it with your mind’s eye. Yours may be an ivory french door with wide, double panes. Perhaps it’s a timber door with decorative arch grilles. It may even be a japanese-inspired sliding shoji door. Whatever it may be, let your imagination go wild. In case you’re wondering, mine just happens to be a large mahogany double-door with a stained-glass crescent in the centre. Can you see it? Good.
I’d like you to add in just one more detail. The door is locked and needs two keys to open it. I like to imagine a pair of ornate skeleton keys, but yours may be different - electronic keycards, perhaps? This lock cannot be picked, and it cannot be undone with a whisper of magic “Alohomora”. It requires these unique, but universal keys - both of them. The first key is Awareness, and second is Action.
You may be thinking…. “Wait, you’re telling me that the only thing I need to live my dream life are these two things?” Well, yes! At least, that’s all you need to start.
Awareness, or self-awareness, is required to learn and to grow. It can help you gain insight into patterns that are no longer helpful, and achieve better understanding of yourself and others. When you are able to objectively evaluate yourself, you can begin to align your behaviour with your beliefs, values, and goals. Without awareness, we can remain stuck and become complacent in life. Luckily, self-awareness is a skill that can be tempered and trained. This ‘key’ is a malleable one.
The other key is not. It is tough and uncompromising because no matter how much you want something, how much you plead, or cry, or scream, or even feel that you deserve it….you cannot get there without forward movement. When you want to manifest something in your life, whether that be a good relationship, a stable financial situation, or mastery over a certain skill, it requires an intention and at least some amount of effort. It means you have to be willing to take a step towards change and making things different, and that is not to say that some steps aren’t really steep or scary - they certainly can be. But, perhaps when those steps are broken down into smaller ones, it becomes possible.
Awareness and Action are the keys to unlocking a life filled with meaning and joy, and you need both to open that door. If you act without awareness, it means that you go through life on autopilot not understanding what you are doing and why (thus no meaning). If you have Awareness but choose to remain idle, you may grow bitter and miss out on the sweetness of life. Lack of either and the result is the same - your door will remain shut.
The good news in all of this is…. you already have both keys. They exist within each and every one of us. Sometimes we may need to dig deep for them, and build up the courage to stick them in the door and turn the key, but they are inside of us, and no one else. By shifting the way we approach our circumstances and remembering that we already have everything we need to make a difference in our own lives, we can change the way we think about ourselves and the story we’re living - we can transform our vision into reality.
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