Make it real. Make it happen.

A caterpillar spins its cocoon without conscious thought of why or when or how. Nature propels its spinning ways until, possibly out of sheer exhaustion, it falls asleep to dream about flying free of the cloying nature of its weave. When the time is right, its metamorphosis from one state to another is complete and a butterfly is born.

We are not the caterpillar, being transformed by forces of nature beyond our control. We are human beings, doing the things that put us in control, or out of control as the case may be, of our transformation. Often, laden with our self-limiting beliefs, we resist change like a cat resists taking a bath. We claw and spit our way into reverse action, spinning protective webs of the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, in our desperate attempt to hold ourselves in place and ward off change. James Belasco and Ralph Stayer wrote in their 1994 best-selling book on organizational change, Flight of the Buffalo, "Change is hard because people overestimate the value of what they have—and underestimate the value of what they may gain by giving that up."

When I was released from an abusive relationship it was a case of 'grow or die'. While in that relationship, I was the living, breathing, walking dead. I didn't resist change so much as give up on the possibility of change ever happening in my life because I could not see that I could have a life beyond the realm of my existence with 'him'. I could not see the end of the story without him in it. I had completely submerged my identity into his. Tied myself to him within the sticky cocoon of his lies and my own self-limiting beliefs that said, "I am no one without him." "He is all that I deserve." "It's all my fault." "He's right. I'm stupid."

I look back on the woman I was and wonder, "Who was she?" While I also wonder, "What on earth was she smoking?", I know that woman was me. I love her for the abused and battered woman she was. She was me, once upon a time. She is not me today. In that moment of release when the police walked in and arrested him, I knew I had to take a leap. The choice of staying with him was gone. Was I going to grow or die under the weight of blame and shame and sorrow and guilt that threatened to bury me alive? It was up to me.

I chose to grow and live. It wasn't a slow process. It was a moment in time. A choice to live the moment the police took him away and left me alone with the devastation of my life. In that moment of crisis I took an evolutionary leap into the void. I didn't know where I was going. I didn't know what I was going to or what I was going to do. But I knew I wanted to live. The rest was simple. BE committed to DO what it takes to HAVE what I want. To be free of the past, I knew I had to rethink my thinking. Brush up on my existence. Retool my perceptions and reclaim my human experience.

That is the way of change, of evolution, of revolution. It isn't a linear line moving predictably forward. It's a circling spiral rising up within us. Sometimes, we slip back, or halt along the way. Sometimes, we soar upwards, ascending through earthly matter outwards into the vastness of the universe, catching momentary glimpses of the greater truth that exists beyond our consciousness, out there in the universe amongst the glittering stars of our existence. In those moments we know the truth: We are creations of wonder. Divine reflections of the miracle of life. Children of God, of Buddha, Baha'ula, Mohammad. Whatever you call it, we are divine beings of spirits rising.

I awoke this morning, tired. Wondering what I would write. I turned on my computer. Made my coffee. Fed the dogs and sat down in front of my keyboard. The screen before me was blank. My mind felt almost as blank! I didn't want to write. Didn't want to figure out what I was going to say. I wanted to resist being part of a change that created words that had meaning for me and might or might not have meaning for eyes I could not see, somewhere out there in the delicate web of the Internet. I closed my eyes, took a breath and leaped. In that moment of suspension, I trusted the process of creation and trusted the creative process to appear.

That's life. Living in the moment, suspended between what was and what could be, existing in the now of creation, spinning dreams only we can weave. I have made a commitment with myself to write on this blog every day. Some days, my words flow. Some days they appear in sluggish protestation of the time of day, my tired state of mind or simply my resistance to creating value in my own life.

In my BE. DO. HAVE. frame of mind, I accept that change is a necessary part of living and I create the change I'm living. There is only one way to transform a blank screen into the written word and that is to let my thoughts flow out through my typing fingers. There is only one way to transform a dream into reality. Make it real and make it happen.

That's me. I'm making it real and making it happen by doing it from where I'm at, right now in this moment of creation. I'm doing it on purpose, purposefully doing what it takes to have what I want.

May your day be filled with blessings. May you spin your own dreams come true.