Much of my life I've been wary of making wishes: I've always had this secret fear that they'll be granted in horrible ways. Once I even wrote an Enid-Blyton-styled school story with a horrific twist where the girls make wishes and then suffer gory consequences as their wishes come true!
Needless to say, I very rarely wish for anything just in case that happens to me. So on my birthdays, when I'm blowing out those candles, I simply wish for world peace, and can then go about the rest of the year carefree in the knowledge that whether or not my wish comes true, my life will be pretty much the same.
Wait a minute. It just struck me. What if my birthday wishes are what keep alive all these ridiculous wars-to-bring-peace and peace-keeping-forces??!!
Oh well. Maybe this year I'll forego the candles altogether. Or just wish for the largest slice of cake. That should be harmless. I hope.
But let me get to the point: I've just discovered it's not always a bad idea to make a wish. Or even hundreds of wishes. That whole "be careful what you wish for" doesn't always have to be applied.
Just last week, having got a new eye (well a new lens in the same old eye), I've been able to get back to one of my favourite pastimes - googling random stuff. And I came across a website that introduced me to WISH BRAINSTORMING.
Of late, I'd been feeling that my life was stagnating, no sense of direction or fulfilment, just plodding from one day into another as best as I could. So I decided to give it a shot. I got out my notebook and started religiously answering all the questions in the wish brainstorming exercise. I did it over and over, for various areas of my life: career, friends, family, home, health and fitness, financial, fun, relaxation, personal development, spiritual, community/legacy, work, children, romance.
Answering the questions wasn't as easy as I thought, even though all my answers simply had to be wishes. Some made me uncomfortable or sad or angry or regretful. But I decided to stick with it and I'm glad I did because I discovered that the more wishes I scribbled and then prioritised, the clearer my vision got.
I don't know if it was the simple act of getting all my jumbled thoughts about umpteen things down onto paper, or if it was specifically the wish brainstorming exercise. But as I wrote, I began to find myself feeling lighter and clearer. I was decluttering my head! Solutions and understandings were popping into my head to replace the stuff I was pouring out.
After a week of writing and wishing, none of my "problems" have been magically whisked away, but they've been shrunk down to size from the hugely inflated disasters I'd been carrying around in my head. I've been able to let go of some, put others on the back burners, and focus on simple and easy (well, relatively easy) ways to improve my life.
Do I sound like an ad for a self-help book? I can't help it - I'm eating better, feeling better, doing better. And I'm writing again.
So here I am to tell you about my happy find, and share the link with you (click on the highlit words in paragraph 6), so that you can try it out if you feel like it. I'd love to hear how it went for you. I wish you well!
And now I must go explore the possibilities of what horrors might lurk within the largest slice of birthday cake .. and the story that might come out of that.
(edited 15 April 2014)
