Sacred Entrepreneurship

One Hour Can Change Your Life

 

So many of us walk about our days with the distinct sense that something is waiting to be born through us. A creation that has our name on it, and simply won’t settle for anyone else. Whether it’s a garden, a book, a business, a meditation practice or a newly renovated kitchen, inspiration takes ahold of us and often won’t let go— sometimes for months, years or a lifetime.

Gurus endlessly espouse the virtues of being in the now, and yet, for those of us who are visited by the muse of inspiration, our moments of being completely in the present often seem to be scattered like sunflower seeds between the weeds.

The truth is that most of us are haunted by dreams.

Or maybe another way to put is that certain dreams seem to haunt us.

You gotta admit, the muse sure is insistent.

But every time the muse whispers of future creations, it is not only a call for gestation, it is an invitation for transformation, beginning this very moment.

The biggest gift offered by the muse is not what comes out of the birth, but the wondrous complexity and deep now-ness of the process.

When we get lost in what will be, we forget the central truth of births— that they are designed to change us.

In truth, the muse’s real project was never that updated kitchen, it is our own newly renovated self.

We are the ones being created through the process of birthing our visions. The daily persistence of committing to a creation is what will eventually change the fabric of who you are— which is the whole reason why the muse visited in the first place, to initiate this process.

 

 

The torture of the dream that lurks like a desert mirage is that it is almost always in the future, half a mile ahead of where we are.

But we can experience it now. We just have to recognize that the dream was never a solid or fixed thing in the distance. Like sand dunes, a dream is ever-shifting and alive. The muse doesn’t ask us to attain a dream. She requires us to become good dreamers.

Dreaming is a verb that was meant to move you, shifting the sands of your inner being. When we give ourselves permission to relish the process of dreaming, we realize that the dazzling dunes created by the daily windstorms of our focused inspirations are the actual gift. The small sips of spring water that, at first, seemed to just tide you over, become the joypoints of your day. And instead of chasing a mirage, you can fill your belly now with life-giving waters and enjoy the sunsets along the way.

That said, something about that oasis of water just on the horizon can certainly still be crazy-making. But it’s not necessarily just because we haven’t touched it yet…

The true pain of the present is not that our dreams haven’t happened yet, but that we don’t know how to get there. It all seems so big, statuesque, overwhelmingly far or complex. Sometimes that overwhelm itself prevents us from even starting.

But you can actually begin to embody your dream right now, and authenticity change the landscape of your life.

All it takes is an hour a day.

 

 

An Hour to Change Your Life

These days I birth most of my new projects by this process. I decide what it is I truly want to manifest, and then I dedicate just one hour a day to its creation. No more, no less. This is the way I run my business, work on long-term goals, run my house, and create a life that fulfills me. But it’s not always easy.

Often, when I finally bring myself to do it there is a good solid chunk of inward mental rebellion for about fifteen minutes. Who do I think I am do to this? I don’t have the skills, experience, knowledge, resources, time, ability to create this. I haven’t even started and I’m already a failure. 

I admit, sometimes it exhausts me, but I recognize that the real reason I feel called to work on this particular creation is because I’m being asked to learn about myself, to undo my inner blocks, and to grow. So, like a mother putting up with the moods of their toddler, I realize this time of mental temper tantrums is important. I stay present with them, I hear them and then, miraculously, they resolve themselves. At some point the pleasure of the fact that I’m doing the damn thing is stronger than the voice of protest, and I can just enjoy the rest of my time tinkering.

Yes, tinkering. The word “creating” often seems too weighty for what these hours look like because they can be so experimental. Most of the time, I’ve never birthed anything quite like this before so I allow the hour to be somewhat exploratory and nonlinear. I round the contours with curiosity and figure out what works through trial and error.

When I follow this regime of a scheduled hour a day, the most extraordinary thing of all begins to happen. The angst and anxiety that seems to continually repeat in the background fades. I’m less focused on the future and more delighted to be in the present. I feel content with where I am, who I am, and I begin to make peace with all the self-imposed timelines.

And whenever I find myself slipping into doubt, wondering if this regime really works in the long haul, I think about JK Rowling, who wrote the first few Harry Potter books as a single mom on assistance while her baby napped. Or Jadav Payeng, who turned a barren sandbar into a thousand acres of forest, one hour at a time, over the course of forty years.

With one hour a day, and an entire lifetime stretching out ahead of you, you could plant a whole new ecosystem of abundance and fulfillment for yourself and for the planet. You can create the kind of landscape you always hoped to live in. The mirage can become your daily oasis.

So take a moment before next week begins to put a few hours on schedule. Pull up your calendar and pencil it in. Even if you start with just one single hour next week, I promise that you will feel such a relief. And that the dream, your dream, the one that seems so elusive, will come in close. Like a cat settling in your lap, it will sink in, settle and simply begin to purr.

 

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Want more guidance in manifesting your innermost dreams? Check out this blog post for my three unconventional tips to starting your healing business. And don’t forget to check out: Business as a Spiritual Journey, an online course specifically created to help empaths flourish on the path of entrepreneurship!