• December 28, 2015
• admin
• no comments

As we begin the New Year, many leaders and organizations are setting aside time to create goals for the coming year, both small and grandiose. Millions of New Year’s resolutions are declared with good intentions, hope and anticipation about how this year will be different.

If you look up “create” in the dictionary, you will find something like the following: “To cause to exist; bring into being[i].” This definition struck me as someone in the creating futures business. I often hear people make a distinction between creating and manifesting – between coming up with a vision and bringing that vision into existence. So what does it take to bring a new reality into existence?

“Many visions are doomed from the outset because those who articulate them, whether consciously or not, are coming from a place of powerlessness. If we believe that someone else has created our present reality, what is the basis for believing that we can create a different reality in the future?”[ii]

It is considered an extreme stance to say that everything in your life you have created. Especially for those who face traumatic or tragic events in their life, no one wants to be accused of saying that the victim created the crime. At the same time, when you think of reality as created by something outside of yourself, you give up your power to manifest new realities.

Manifesting new realities begins by acknowledging that you are not separate from the reality you experience. That the language you use, what you emote, the actions you take moment by moment, and the energetic frequency you allow yourself to live within, all create the reality you experience. Until we accept our own authorship of that which we experience, we are powerless to manifest anything other than variations on the theme. The more we accept, the more space we have to truly create. Acceptance is not toleration, and it is not saying that you are okay with something or even that it should be that way. Acceptance is simply allowing a thing to be itself. Ironically it is only those who “cannot accept”, who can never move on.

• What of your current reality can you accept?

Once you have allowed for acceptance of what is in your life (again, this is not toleration or permitting), you will experience an empty space, a new freedom. If you allow yourself to be still and listen to what is emerging, something is calling you. In other words, you are not figuring it out, but rather, listening to what is emerging. Stillness, listening, and allowing – being the vessel to bring what wants existence into being. There is no force, just a “tuning in” to what is there for you.

• What is calling you?
• If you give up all expectations, all predictions, all “should’s” and “ought to’s”, what begins to emerge?

Aligning yourself with this new emergence is what will now allow it to come into being. Everything in your life is perfectly designed to manifest the current reality. You will now need to re-align the way you speak, who you speak with, your idle thoughts, your daily schedule, the way you eat, spend money, present yourself, etc. with this future that is now calling you. This is not always easy as you have practiced the current reality for quite some time, and creating new patterns and habits can sometimes prove difficult. You are shifting the entire organizing structure in your life. Sound too much? In this day and age of instant gratification and quick fixes for anything in life (making money, weight loss, getting educated, etc), we are less practiced at the effort required to create lasting change. At the same time, when you are aligned with what is naturally calling to you (instead of forcing an outcome of what you think you should do) you may find this part to be natural and fulfilling.

• How can you align what you say with the emerging future?
• How might your relationships need to alter?
• What changes do you need to make to your daily schedule?
• What alterations do you need to make to the other structures in your life?
• What do you need to put in place to support yourself for the long haul?

These are but a few thoughts on creating in the New Year – acceptance, allowing, and aligning. These three principles just might enable a more natural pathway for “creation”, leaving behind force, struggle, exertion, and guilt.

[i] The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

[ii] Senge, Peter, Scharmer, Otto, Jaworski, Joseph, Flowers, Betty Sue (2004). Presence: Human Purpose and the Field of the Future. Doubleday Broadway Publishing Group: New York. Pp.132.