LET THE JOURNEY MATCH THE DESTINATION

METAPHOR #1 OF 3 FOR EASIER (hu)manifestation
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Photo of Trevi Fountain from Michele Bitetto on Unsplash.

I’ll be dropping 3 metaphors for you to fine-tune your power to create what you want on your own.

STORYTIME!
My 19-year-old trip to Rome

I got to do a year abroad in Strasbourg, France, during my second year of college, not the usual junior year, because I was already fluent in French. That was a later gift from having spent years of childhood in a small village in Normandy. So, like most American students there, I got the cheapest Euro-train pass then available and did some traveling during school breaks.

I got to have a super-satisfying trip to Florence (one reason A Room with a View is a film I keep watching) with a few Americans from my program, so I headed to the tip of Italy with one of them to fairy across to Greece. After a sweaty, crowded train ride that lasted too many hours, my companion got anxious about school and headed back to Strasbourg. Crossing into another country alone felt beyond my reach, so I ended up on a late-night train to Rome on my own. I was already in love with Italy, I had train and hostel systems down, so what could go wrong, right?

Hey, a bunch of my readers have bodies containing a uterus, and others know people who do, so I’m not holding back here. I started bleeding during the night with the usual copious flow and woke up—um, how do you say …?—a hot mess. I tied a sweater around my waist and hoped I didn’t smell like fresh road kill to other travelers. I was quietly mortified, huddled on the edge of a train car filled chiefly with men speaking other languages. In my mind, they were surely discussing the atrocity of me.

So here’s a summary of my abysmal trip to Rome for your metaphorical pleasure. I checked in at the hostel and right away happened upon someone I knew there, probably my least favorite American in our study-abroad group. She was an insecure chick with flyaway hair (let’s call her Fly) who talked too much and too nervously, lingering in eddies of details that invariably circled around to self-deprecation. But yay, someone familiar.

I got cleaned up and struck out alone to get a quick glimpse of the Trevi Fountain—an amazing sight, to be sure, but I hadn’t shaken off my journey. Cloaked in the shame I wore in, I felt unworthy of viewing this wonder so I gazed quietly from a safe distance, a party crasher hugging the wall by the exit. Then I met up with Fly to go out on the town, though not exactly in high spirits.

Somehow (I don’t remember how), we ended up going along with two charming Italian guys proposing in broken English to show us the Coliseum. I can still picture us standing on the Rome metro as I gripped some steadying bar and glimpsed suspiciously at the undeniably gorgeous guy I’d been paired with. The pairings happened instantly and wordlessly between the two men based on who’s-hotter rules that didn’t need speaking. I’ll mention I was the beautiful one because I now know that meant nothing but this: there I was giving some false impression of my value, the truth of which would surely soon expose me as a fraud. This unspoken sensation was more destabilizing than the jolts of the city train rushing me to what had to be the next humiliation. (Don’t worry, no trigger warning needed for what follows.)

Turns out the Coliseum, a stunning, still light show in the night, was and perhaps still is a popular make-out place. The guys weren’t proposing to be tour guides (I know you’re shocked). Though I had no sense of personal power at the time, it also turned out that these hormone-driven dudes meant no harm, so Fly and I took some easy exit stage left (details elude me here too) and went on our way without further escort.

The next day, I braved one more solo venture, putting myself on a train back to Strasbourg. Fly saw me off from the hostel breakfast room, mentioning to her coffee that she knew from the start I wouldn’t last. My trip to one of Europe’s most desirable cities was a conspicuous failure, and so was I.

Image from back of train of view of train taking a curve through a country setting from Tushar Ranjan on Unsplash.

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And the point is?
Mind that the journeys you take match the destinations.

We human beings take harrowing journeys all the time on the way to the very places where we wish to have wonderful, fulfilling, satisfying experiences. Have you done this? I invite you to actually answer that question and find where you’ve innocently used this misguided tactic. Let me jog your brain a bit.

You looked (or are looking) for a romantic/primary partner (you know, the one you want to have a harmonious, fun, and connected relationship with) while

• declaring how much you hate dating
• reiterating that all the good ones are taken and all the [crazy, unavailable, narcissistic, boring] ones are drawn to you
• going out on dates you’re already pretty sure won’t be fun
• staying put in polite conversation, pasted-on smiles, or worse instead of making a quick, unapologetic exit
• making a mess of interactions with someone within the first few months because, actually, you really like them, so you increasingly seek to control them and each situation as the exploration unfolds with normal things arising that aren’t instantly to your liking
• …

You worked or are working at a decent job with the intention of getting a promotion into a position you really want (the one that will feel like a joy to walk into daily) while

• being annoyed by the parts of the current job you don’t love
• finding fault with the people around you (and I’m not saying your observations were incorrect, but that focus is disempowering at best!)
• working too hard and too tirelessly (with increasing depletion and perhaps resentment) as you keep seeking to prove your worth
• quietly or just mentally complaining about [how underappreciated you are] [how dysfunctional this work place is] [fill in your complaint of choice]
• …

You wanted or want to get a more solid footing financially (to feel at ease, competent in your adulting, free to make some choices for a good life) and sought or seek to do that while

• again (and again) anxiously checking your bank account that hasn’t changed
• agonizing over numbers, especially the imbalance of money in, money out
• worrying about the future and predicting discomfort and insecurity (if not a curbside view of life going by with your one bag sitting next to you)
• depriving yourself of purchases that could feel good and improve your quality of life in a different mindset—then feeling deprived
• feeling resentful of necessary bills for services and items you want
• agonizing over past financial decisions
• feeling stuck at your current level of power to produce more revenue
• …

Like the other LOA principles I talk and write about, I got this from Abraham-Hicks: How can you expect to have a beautiful outcome to a horrendous journey?

It’s a good question that begs a few others:

• How do you walk into a room with an aura of calm and solidity that inspires confidence when you fretted and moaned over traffic and time and the likelihood of a difficult meeting the whole way there?
• How do you feel when you get to the place where you meant to feel fabulous and have fun if you felt god-awful all the way there?
• How do you generate ease, connection, or even basic kindness toward and curiosity about others when your mind and mood and movements are fraught with worry and suspicion and fear?

My time in Rome was just as unpleasant as my journey there, and my view of myself and mental climate rode in on the train with me and didn’t let me go just because Rome is Rome. And the familiar person I found there wasn’t a fun and wonderful person I was thrilled to see, but the self-deprecating worm of a person who reflected what I was feeling myself to be. Fly was actually my perfect match, the just-right impromptu traveling companion for me in that moment. I did get the benefits of not being all alone on foreign ground while on my most wobbly footing, but the person who showed up only confirmed how I was viewing myself and my prospects for a positive experience then and there. This is LOA in action. It’s not life trying to be cruel or punitive. It’s just the law of like attracts like.

I invite you to stop trying to get to a high place with your focus, mood, thoughts, self-image, view of others, conversation (etc, etc) aimed low where it’s dingy and grimy! That just called to mind the old line from Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, remember? There’s plenty like me to be found—mongrels, who ain’t got a penny, sniffing for tidbits like you on the ground. LOA, folks. Mongrels find mongrels. Miserable journeys yield miserable ends.

Please don’t set yourself up to arrive in paradise with your hackles up and your blood pressure through the roof. It really doesn’t work that way. Interrupt and soothe any focus that feels unlike what you’re after. Get to where you’re going while reaching constantly for the same feeling and mindset you wish to have once you’re there. ENJOY THE JOURNEY. This isn’t that hard. It really helps if you’re committed to and keep practicing feeling good, then you’ll interrupt more quickly what doesn’t and you’ll head that way again swiftly, now and now and now.

I know I’m asking a lot: practice feeling better as you head toward what you think will feel better.

Love & blessings, Jaya

Manifestation metaphor #2 addresses the revolving door of the resistant mind.

Manifestation metaphor #3 points out the old warped mirrors held up for you.