Just a reminder: keep failing. And I don’t mean that failing is an end goal or strategy, rather failure is just a signpost that we’ve swing to one side of the pendulum that takes us out of alignment. And alignment is potentially an opportunity for growth.
It’s really all about perception. Perception creates thoughts which create beliefs which create reality. Failure can be “good” or “bad”. So can success.
When we give ourselves permission to fail, we embrace the process of returning to our center where prosperity exists. Failure is truly marked by how we perceive what’s happening. In perceiving failures, we might open to reframing their occurrence as mile markers for success. Or we may choose to view them as ruts and places we can’t seem to get out of. I think this is at the heart of what Rich is capturing; our failures can open us up to living more spectacularly as we see this dance of polarity.
Often our “failures” are not really failures if we can see the lessons and beauty emerging from the tension in our changing lives.
Change is unchanging, but transformation is when we make this change conscious, independent of success and failure. In making change conscious, whether we fail or succeed, there is still gold to mine. In “mining gold”, we harness the power of transformation by uncovering opportunities for harvest.
There are fruits on either side. And how many of us have had success and not celebrated!? Not mined the gold? How many of us have failed but missed an opportunity to create success in that very failure?
How do we make our failures and successes more conscious? How can our failures serve us? How can our success remind us to celebrate?
Success is truly arbitrary. How you define it can be everything, just like failure. Let’s play with some new definitions….
Something I’ve been really feeling lately is the importance of re-writing my script for success, along with failure, so that judgment doesn’t flood in (the creativity, intimacy, prosperity killer).
Currently, my aim for “success” and “failure” have changed. Here it is:
Success = I’m in alignment.
Failure = I’m out of alignment.
Alignment = present awareness of the power to create reality.
“Take risks. Fail spectacularly. And then go out and fail more.”
– Rich Litvin
If I’m in alignment or not, this doesn’t imply good/bad, right/wrong, success/failure. Those are all just distractions from the really juicy fulfilling pulse of life ever available to us. so if we get caught in dual thinking, which can be ultra-paralyzing, what happens?
Usually when we perceive success, it’s so easy to celebrate and invite greater joy into life. When successful, we often say, “I did the thing and the thing I wanted happened!” (Basically, I am a powerful creator). Or maybe we overlook it and forget to celebrate, going right back to the grind.
When perceiving failure, we usually fall prey to maya and forget we’re creators! Failure can feel like we messed up.m, like we made a mistake. Maybe we begin judging ourselves or others and placing blame somewhere if we’re not ready to take ownership (claim our creatorship and capacity for choice).
At either of these places, we can actually celebrate and cal in greater fulfillment. This is really the main point, but let’s take a step further. What about prosperity anyway?
Prosperity is analogous to fulfillment. We can chase success and happiness all day, and avoid failure and sadness, but the reality is it all comes and goes. Failure and success are energetic poles that can keep us trapped in the avoidance of one and the pursuit of the other, in a loop of our own making or they are potentially windows for liberating our experience back into its natural state of bliss and celebrating the full spectrum of human experience (all the colors, feelings, ups and downs).
Failure and success are just like ebbs and flows in our life journey reminding us of universal principles in harmony. If one has a hold on us, likely there is something out of balance or harmony. Check your giving and receiving.
In balanced giving and receiving, prosperity emerges.
Prosperity is a state of mind arising from being completely present with that unfolding of our lives, attuned with the natural abundance that emanates from our being and life itself. It’s palpable. You can feel prosperity. It’s in many ways unchanging, or perhaps more accurately available for us to receive.
Prosperity is when giving and receiving are in balance (with self, others, the world). I’m a big way, it’s much harder to feel prosperity when we’re not in balance with giving and receiving. So where might you need to receive a bit more? Where may you need to give more?
True prosperity, in its depth of experience, is worthwhile. It is the result aligning with a higher purpose and opening the heart fully.
This higher purpose is one that takes us into the depth of gratitude for being alive, that doesn’t need to attain anything because the attainment is right here, right now, I’m the joy of life’s creative process. This higher purpose is not forcing anything (out of control, conditioning, maya), rather turning inwardly to an alignment with one’s design. Embodying our design is integrating the very polarities attempting to illuminate our light and beauty. It’s embracing challenges, anchoring into a deeper core stability of who we are and clarifying purpose, which brings us into instant alignment.
This opening of the heart is seeing and breathing love in everything. It’s recognizing that the very core fracture wound we have in this life is sacred. It’s our pathway through to radiance and prosperity.
Of course, that journey can be full of challenges and opportunities, yet there is a breakthrough into lasting prosperity that isn’t dependent on external conditions. It isn’t dependent on success or failure. For some of us it happens early in life or maybe when we least expect it. For others, it’s lifetimes in the making.
Wherever you are on your journey, remember to slow down and come back to presence. It is here that all is found. From this place, we can anchor, align, remember, and rejoice. We can truly appreciate our design. Then go off, and fail again, but this time spectacularly.
