The book of unlimited magical things

*taking notes on the little miracles of life

Dear Kula Diaries,

A few weeks ago, I mentioned that I had started a Serendipity Journal — this is a book where, each day, I record small serendipities that I notice popping up in my life.

Here’s an example: Aaron and I were working on a crossword puzzle, and one of the clues was: DUTCH BLOOMER. For some reason, I was hung up on the word, ‘bloomer’, and I kept thinking that it was referring to old fashioned underwear… you know, the type that look like this…

As we filled in the gaps in the crossword puzzle, it suddenly became painfully obvious that the correct word had nothing to do with underwear. Instead, DUTCH BLOOMER was a clue for an altogether different type of bloomer:

Ok, I get it. A tulip is a Dutch bloomer. Ha!

I felt a bit silly that I hadn’t figured out the clue right away, but that’s how it goes with crossword puzzles: sometimes the most obvious answer isn’t so obvious… until it is.

We were sitting in a coffee shop working on the puzzle together, and as we sat at our small table, I casually glanced up and saw that the entire wall was filled with a large cluster of abstract and beautiful paintings. “What are these paintings?”, I asked myself curiously as I stood up to take a closer look at the description. I laughed out loud as I read the tiny description of the paintings: the entire series of paintings was meant to represent a field of abstract tulips.

For fun, here’s a video from a few years ago… in a Tulip field.

Later that day, I wrote down the serendipity in my notebook, and I felt decidedly giddy about it. A few days later, I hosted a Make-A-Kula event for a group of women hikers. As a part of the event, they were asked to send me their designs ahead of time so that I could prep them. One by one, I opened up their photos to prepare them for the event… and the very first one that arrived? A photo of a field of tulips.

Again, I wrote it down in my little book of serendipities.

A few days later, I had a meeting with my coach where she asked me to pick a physical symbol for my own personal vision setting process. I was sitting at my desk, and I looked up at the wall in front of me, which was covered with art that has been featured on Kulas. The Kula, most notably, is in the shape of a diamond — a square, tilted to 45 degrees. As I looked at these paintings, I said, “I think I’m going to choose a diamond, because it represents Kula to me… but I’m not sold on this yet. I’ll get back to you.”

I closed my eyes for a meditation shortly thereafter, and in my mind I saw this ‘diamond’ as a bright blue stone. It definitely wasn’t a diamond, but I wasn’t sure what it was.

A few days later, in my intuitive development session, we had a special guest — a woman who used Oracle cards, which is something I had never experienced before. She drew a card for me, and the second she held it up to the camera, I had to laugh out loud: it was a sparkly, bright blue stone called Azurite:

Underneath the name of the stone, the card said that it represented, deep emotional healing.

These ‘coincidences’ often feel like ‘nothing’, and it’s easy to pass them by, but as I’ve shared before, I prefer to see them as tiny glimmers — little reminders that the universe is indeed responding to what I focus on, and the energy that I am radiating from within my heart. As I notice them, I smile inside and outside, and I recognize my own power to create the world that I want to see.

Recently, I finished reading a book called The Four Agreements, and one of the most poignant things that the author talks about is the concept that everything in the universe is made of light — essentially, vibrating atoms and energy — and that since we are made of light, the world we see is a reflection of the light that we radiate. When we focus on tulips, we see more tulips. When we focus on love, we see and create more love.

Over the past few weeks, as I have written down my serendipities in my book — I have continued to see, maybe not surprisingly, more and more of them. My energetic signal out to the universe is saying, very strongly, show me more of this!

In January of this past year, I decided that my biggest goal for the year was:

To create unlimited magical things.

What does this mean? It means that I want to use the supercharged power of love within my own heart to create the type of energy that will allow me to perceive a world that reflects back the goodness and wholeness that I feel inside. It means letting go of the things that I have told myself for far too long. It means taking back the time that I have wasted worrying about things that I cannot and do not need to control. It means being at ease in my body, mind and heart. It means tapping into the infinite love that exists for all of us, and feeling a sense of awe and reverence about the opportunity to live a life in this universe.

A few days ago, as I was hand lettering some quotes during my evening watercolor practice, I came across this quote:

I can’t bear to quantify the amount of time that I have spent worrying, fretting, being angry, or feeling despair about imaginary circumstances that I have created in my head, based on deeply seated fears and wounds that I didn’t even know were present. I understand this now, from a place of love — and I recognize that I developed these tendencies to protect myself, and that at one point in my life, these skills were very useful. I’m grateful for their service, but I also recognize that their presence at this point in my life is no longer helpful. Instead, it is hurtful — preventing me from being able to connect with the things that I know are true. In the book that I’m reading right now, Positive Intelligence by Shirzad Charmin, he writes candidly about the hidden life of many company founders and CEOs who are, ‘privately torturing themselves’. As I read his words, I said out loud: Ugh. That sounds like me.

I’m not going to sugar coat this at all: I have privately tortured myself for years. For most of my life, in fact. I have held myself to a standard so unattainable, because as a little girl — being perfect at everything was how I got attention. It was how I survived being bullied. It was how I felt loved. I did not know that I deserved love just for existing. It was always attached to accomplishments and measured with completely arbitrary ‘grades’ doled out by teachers in school. In order to escape unscathed, I did what I had to do: I put on a happy face and I convinced myself that I had to be perfect at everything in order to be loved.

This felt pretty magical the other morning on my walk!

I now know this: It was a lie. I am not lovable because of what I do, but rather because I simply exist. Not as the founder of a company… or because I’ve climbed any number of peaks… or because I’ve written any amount of poems… but just because I’m me. And you, my friend, are lovable… because you are you. That’s it! That’s the thing that makes us worthy of love and worthy of the infinite magical things that await us around every corner, if we stop trying to attach our value and worth to things outside of us.

I changed the name of my Serendipity Journal to ‘The Book of Unlimited Magical Things’, because I wanted to stay open to the infinite possibilities and remember that when I expect them, they will arrive. The Book of Unlimited Magical Things is not about finding my value in the little things that ‘show up’ — it is a book that is meant to remind me to see my own reflection in the goodness that I am able to create. As I see the tulip, over and over again, I begin to notice: I am also the tulip. I am the flower that blooms. I am the shimmering reflection of the bright blue azurite crystals. Everything is connected — we are all, as Thich Nhat Hanh writes so eloquently, interbeing.

It’s not easy for me to focus on the things that I want to create all of the time, but writing down these little miracles helps me focus my attention on the small things that matter. It’s so easy to get lost in wanting something else, and in the process, we lose sight of what we have. In my endless pursuit for when, I forget about now.

It's looking a little worse for wear now, but here is my book of unlimited magical things.

On the days when I torture myself, I feel exhausted and drained — the voice in my head tells me that I’m not enough and that I’m failing. Just last week, I broke down crying to my husband and told him that I was, in my words, done. Sometimes, buried in my self-sabotage, I wonder: How do I pick myself up off the ground endlessly? How can I brush off my knees and keep going? In those moments, the glimmers help me. The tulips… the stones… the little nudges that tell me that I’m not alone. They remind me that I’m a piece of something else, and that there is nothing to fear. I take a deep breath, and I look around. I feel my body sitting in my chair. I’m breathing. I am alive. I am OK right now. I can take another step. As I write down the little miracles, I remember the truth that often eludes all of us: that the most unlimited magical thing that we will every discover… is ourselves.

Friends, I wanted to end by sharing one of my favorite poems from Irish Poet, John O’ Donohue. I hope that you find it meaningful and that it brings you some comfort in knowing that you are doing your best and that the sun will rise tomorrow. You are loved so much friends, thanks for being here.

For One Who Is Exhausted, a Blessing

by John O’Donohue

When the rhythm of the heart becomes hectic,
Time takes on the strain until it breaks;
Then all the unattended stress falls in
On the mind like an endless, increasing weight.

The light in the mind becomes dim.
Things you could take in your stride before
Now become laborsome events of will.

Weariness invades your spirit.
Gravity begins falling inside you,
Dragging down every bone.

The tide you never valued has gone out.
And you are marooned on unsure ground.
Something within you has closed down;
And you cannot push yourself back to life.

You have been forced to enter empty time.
The desire that drove you has relinquished.
There is nothing else to do now but rest
And patiently learn to receive the self
You have forsaken in the race of days.

At first your thinking will darken
And sadness take over like listless weather.
The flow of unwept tears will frighten you.

You have traveled too fast over false ground;
Now your soul has come to take you back.

Take refuge in your senses, open up
To all the small miracles you rushed through.

Become inclined to watch the way of rain
When it falls slow and free.

Imitate the habit of twilight,
Taking time to open the well of color
That fostered the brightness of day.

Draw alongside the silence of stone
Until its calmness can claim you.
Be excessively gentle with yourself.

Stay clear of those vexed in spirit.
Learn to linger around someone of ease
Who feels they have all the time in the world.

Gradually, you will return to yourself,
Having learned a new respect for your heart
And the joy that dwells far within slow time.

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Sending you all so much love, friends. You’re doing great.