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What Happens When You Ask Life to Show You Another Way and Then Hate the Way It Answers? · Just Julia

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: A few days before I lost my job,
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: I was sitting by the window of an airplane somewhere above the clouds,
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: flying home from Bucharest.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: I was anxious.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: Work had been weighing on me for some time and I remember looking out of
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: that tiny window and repeating something I had started saying to myself more
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: and more.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: Show me.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Guide me.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Use me.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm listening.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm at your service.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: I don't remember exactly how many times I said it, but I remember meaning it.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: A few days later, I lost my job.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Apparently, I should have been more specific.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: I can laugh at that now.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: At the time, I certainly wasn't laughing.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: And just to be clear, I don't believe an affirmation got me fired.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think I sat on an airplane,
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: placed an order with the universe, and received unemployment a few days later.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: But I have thought about the timing a lot,
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: because there is something slightly inconvenient about asking life
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: to show you another way.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: What if you don't like the way it shows you?
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: I've been using affirmations for years.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: One of the first that really stayed with me was Marisa Peer's I am enough.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: Three words, and I repeated them for years.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Over time, my notes app became a strange little collection of sentences I wanted to remember.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Some were about worth.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: I, Julia, am worthy of having all my needs met.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: Some were about abundance.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: Money comes to me abundantly and freely.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Others were about possibility.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Surprise me, universe, with possibilities beyond what I can imagine.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: There is one I use when I'm afraid of an outcome, particularly lately during job interviews.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's this or something better.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: And there is another I love when I'm making something unnecessarily complicated
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: before I've even started.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: Show me how easy this gets to be.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: But somewhere along the way I noticed that the affirmations
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: that affected me most had started changing.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: They weren't really statements anymore.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: They were questions.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: What can I do differently to live a happier, more fulfilling life?
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: What is this asking of me?
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: Where would you have me go?
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: What would you have me do?
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: What would you have me say?
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: And to whom?
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: And then there was the one that kept coming back.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: Show me.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: Guide me.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: Use me.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm listening.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm at your service.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe that difference matters,
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: because I am enough asks me to believe something about myself,
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: while show me asks me to admit that perhaps I don't already know.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: I shared that mantra publicly for the first time recently in my piece about Kundalini.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: Then, within days,
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: I listened to two recent conversations with Oprah Winfrey,
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: one with Jay Shetty and another with Mel Robbins,
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: and heard her talking about a prayer she has carried through her own life.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: The language was remarkably close to what had been running through my own head.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: Show me.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: Use me.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: How can I serve?
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: I actually stopped listening for a second.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: Wait, Oprah asks this too?
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: Not because hearing Oprah say something suddenly makes it true,
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: and certainly not because I'm comparing my life to hers.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: It was what the question represented that stopped me.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: Here is a woman who has achieved almost every conventional marker
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: of success imaginable,
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: and she is still asking what she is here to do,
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: how she can serve, and where she should be guided.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: Suddenly, I understood my own mantra slightly differently.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I haven't been asking life to give me what I want.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I've been asking to understand what I'm here for.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: Those are not the same request.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Six months ago,
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  SPEAKER_00: I don't think I would have been sitting here thinking seriously about purpose,
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: service,
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  SPEAKER_00: what I want to create,
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  SPEAKER_00: or what kind of work I want the next chapter of my life to contain.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: I had a career, a title, and a structure.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: I knew how to operate inside it.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: And then that structure disappeared.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: I would love to tell you that I immediately saw this as an invitation from life.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: I did not.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: I saw it as losing my job.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: There was disappointment, anger, fear, ego, and a lot of practical questions.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: There was also that uncomfortable feeling of no longer knowing exactly how
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: to answer one of the simplest questions people ask.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: So, what do you do?
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: But eventually, another question started appearing.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: What is this asking of me?
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: Not why did this happen,
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: I could probably spend years answering that, but what is this asking of me now?
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: That question changes something for me,
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: because it doesn't require me to pretend I wanted what happened.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't ask me to call something painful a blessing or insist
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: that everything happens for a reason.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: It only asks me what I'm going to do with what has already happened.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: Since then,
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: I have found myself brainstorming things I never really made space to brainstorm
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: before.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: What kind of work actually gives me energy?
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: What do I want to build?
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: What do I want to write about?
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: Who do I want to help?
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: What do I have to say that perhaps only I can say in my particular way?
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: What would I attempt if I stopped assuming everything meaningful had
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: to fit neatly inside the career I had already built?
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: Just Julia itself has become part of that questioning.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: I started writing because I needed somewhere to put the things I was thinking about,
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: but writing has done something I didn't expect.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: It has made me listen to myself.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: Every time I sit down to write one of these pieces,
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: I have to stop long enough to ask what I actually think about something,
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: not what sounds impressive,
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: not what belongs on LinkedIn, not what somebody else would advise me to think or do.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: Me.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know yet where all of that leads, and perhaps that's precisely the point.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: For a long time, I thought affirmations were mainly about changing what we believe.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: Say something enough times and perhaps eventually the mind begins to accept
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: a different possibility.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: I still think there can be something valuable in that,
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: but lately I'm interested in something else.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know whether affirmations change the universe.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: I know they change what I pay attention to.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: When I stop in the middle of a difficult day and ask, what is this asking of me?
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: I interrupt myself.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: When I'm preparing for an interview I really want and remind myself it's this
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: or something better,
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: I loosen my grip,
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: just slightly, on the idea that there is only one acceptable outcome.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: When I'm frightened to put something into the world and say,
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: show me how easy this gets to be,
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: I challenge my own assumption that everything important has to feel difficult.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: And when I say,
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: surprise me with possibilities beyond what I can imagine,
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm admitting something my control-loving brain doesn't particularly enjoy.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I can't imagine every good version of my future yet.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: But there is a catch.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: If I'm going to say show me, I have to be willing to see.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: If I say guide me, I have to accept that the direction may not be the one I had planned.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: If I say surprise me, I probably can't add but only with surprises I have pre-approved.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: And if I say it's this or something better,
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: then perhaps I have to learn how to exist in that deeply uncomfortable space
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  SPEAKER_00: where this is gone and something better hasn't arrived yet.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's the part nobody puts on the affirmation card.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: I still don't know exactly what I believe about manifestation.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know whether the universe is listening when I talk to it.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I say God,
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: sometimes I say universe, and sometimes I don't know who I'm speaking to at all.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: Strangely, I've become more comfortable with not knowing.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: Because perhaps the value isn't in proving who is listening.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: Perhaps the value is that I am.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm listening to myself,
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: to the questions I've avoided,
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  SPEAKER_00: to the things that no longer fit,
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  SPEAKER_00: and to possibilities I might once have dismissed because they didn't belong to
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: the version of my life I had already planned.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: Perhaps that's what these words have been doing for me all along,
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: not predicting my future or magically creating it,
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: but making me conscious enough to participate in it.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: I still say, show me, guide me, use me.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm listening.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: I'm at your service.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: But I understand the words differently now.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: I used to think show me meant show me the answer.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: Now I wonder whether it means show me what I haven't been willing to look at.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: I thought guide me meant take me somewhere better.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe sometimes it means take me somewhere unfamiliar.
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  SPEAKER_00: And use me?
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: That may be the biggest question of all.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: Because it asks me to stop thinking only about what I want from my life
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: and start asking what my life might be asking from me.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have the answer yet.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'm still applying for jobs.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'm still thinking about what comes next.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm still building,
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: questioning,
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: writing,
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: worrying, and occasionally trying to control the entire future from my notes app.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: But maybe I don't need the whole answer today.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I just need to keep listening.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: Six months ago, I would never have imagined myself sitting here asking these questions.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I can't imagine going back to a life where I didn't.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: So these days,
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: when something doesn't go according to plan,
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to remember one more question before I decide
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: that everything has gone wrong.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: What is this asking of me?
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I won't like the answer.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: But I did ask to be shown.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: Just Julia.