We've all heard the saying "God can't fill a cup that is full. A cup must be empty before it can be filled with the new." But what does that truly mean. For me it meant I needed to let go of people, places and things that kept me from changing and dropping beliefs about life that no longer served my higher good.
I currently find myself with an empty cup, but it's a good empty. At first I felt an immediate need to fill that cup with something, anything. But I have learned that true happiness doesn't come from external circumstances and if it does your happiness will always depend on something outside yourself. Even though many times people complain about their jobs, lifestyles, friends and spouses, they keep making the same decisions. They keep filling their cup with the very things they say are making them unhappy. That's the safe choice. It doesn't require us to change. True change comes with risk taking, with the possibility of failure, and it requires making new choices.
I think when your life is empty, you have time to actually reflect on what was, what you liked, what you regret, what you want more of and what you want less of in life. It also creates room to focus on what is truly fulfilling and joyful for us.
I realize now that I wasn't really making conscious choices. I just took what was given. Instead of going after jobs I wanted, I applied for jobs I thought I could get. I didn't realize I had the ability to co-create what I wanted or I was too afraid to actually go for it. It's a lot easier to do the thing you've done than to trail blaze an entire new path. And then there is always the risk that you will make a wrong choice. I believe my cup was still full when I made the decision to move to New Mexico and with a cup filled to the brim with things that didn't fulfill me, the decisions I made subconsciously perhaps were to empty that cup. What better place than the desert to empty things out? Through trials and tribulation I was emptied. (See previous blog entries.)
And sitting with that emptiness I finally feel that a new beginning is now possible. It took a long time, nearly six months and I had to look at some pretty ugly truths about myself and about the way I acted or reacted to life. I had to forgive many people and ultimately myself. I had to give up trying to be right and trying to get everyone to see my point of view or make them wrong. Everyone has the right to live their truth, whether or not anyone else agrees with it. I also had to look at the choices I made as well as the reasons I made them. Basically I believe like many people I was not conscious completely and I wasn't following my gut instinct. Until we become conscious, awakened to the present moment and the infinite choices we have, we will continue to make unconscious choices and won't be awakened to our abilities of intuition.
I considered moving back to New Jersey, but sitting with that decision for a few weeks, just didn't feel right. Our bodies will tell us, if we listen to it, what feels right. I am not talking about emotions. I am talking about intuition, gut instinct. As the world awakens, humans also awaken to this innate ability to use their internal guidance. As Louise Hay says, "You do know what to do." And truly I think we do know what to do in any given moment, if we actually sit with ourselves and ask internally is this the right decision.
Having reached mid-life has had much to do with emptying my cup. I don't want the same things anymore. I want something better, something more meaningful, more satisfying. Up to this point it seems I've just went from job to job, taking the offers that were given. I climbed the corporate ladder in Manhattan. Made it to the window office, with an assistance and was the director of marketing and communications of an international real estate firm. Sure it was great for awhile. It just didn't give me the fulfillment I thought it would. But I don't regret it. It has brought me here and was a necessary right of passage.
I think after reaching a certain age, we just want more from everything. We want more fulfilling jobs, relationships and experiences. We want to live our truth and that truth isn't living a life that our friends and families expect us to live. It's digging deep inside and pulling out those things that make us burst with happiness in just doing them and the second part is having enough courage and tenacity to go after it.
In the empty cup stage, you are more likely to go after what you want more of in life. Once you've sat there with yourself, exposing your weakness, your shortcomings, you conclude that you truly aren't all that bad and you then can look outside yourself again. Your decisions become more conscious, healthier. You begin to love yourself despite your faults and foibles. And the more you love yourself the easier it becomes to make good decisions that will bring the joy you want out of life. You won't take jobs that don't honor you, you will pass on relationships that will drain you and you start to truly care about your health, what you eat and how you treat your body. It also becomes easier to maintain those choices; and you've now made space in your life for God to refill your cup with the good stuff.
So what's next for me? Whatever it is and wherever it will be, I know it will be a life overflowing with love, happiness and abundance, because I am more prepared to go after it and I at a point where I know I truly deserve it!
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