Golden Ladders: The Fifth Key to Happiness
The Fifth Key to Happiness: To create success climb the rungs of the Golden Ladder and manifest your Deepest Desires in the everyday world.
The Fairy Godmother doesn’t spend a lot of time in the material world. Why? The dimension of life we mortals inhabit is toxic for the Fairy Godmother. At this point in human history the corporeal world is contaminated with negativity, pollution and limitations. For her, it would be like entering a smog-filled-environment, where toxicity adheres to the skin dulling the radiance of her incontrovertible optimism, making it difficult to breathe. Yet these are the realities mortals deal with 24/7. Living well is difficult to accomplish in our time-urgent, task-oriented society where success is prioritized over people. That said, apprenticing ourselves to the Fairy Godmother facilitates happiness skills, some easily learned, that buffer us from daily stress. Maybe it’s time for another brief disclaimer. It’s possible when you purify your life of what is toxic and sabotages you, you might (…I’m wincing as I type here) become more sensitive to toxicities. I have a parallel story that could clarify what I’m trying to explain. When I began a spiritual journey in my twenties I thought it would be wonderful to develop intuition. Dare I say it? I longed to develop the skills of a ‘psychic’ nature. Fast forward twenty years. I’ve practiced daily meditations, educated and practiced holistic healing, I’ve experienced many initiations, studied and practiced Indigenous healing traditions and a byproduct is I’m definitely more psychic. What nobody tells you… And I had not thought it through… Now I’m psychic, I really would prefer not to know most of what I’m picking up. Oh, the ironies of Cosmic Comedy. Consider yourself informed and take the journey anyway. You are better for the effort of developing your dreams. The people around you are better for your efforts. When we are grounded in our strengths and resources Positive Possibilities flourish.
So far, we’ve explored the skills of savoring the positive and beautiful already in place. When we claim and increase our awareness of beauty and harmony, then there is more beauty and harmony to notice. Find and define Deepest Desires. They hold the seeds to our happiness. When we solidify our understanding of Deepest Desires, positive psychology tells us we’ve begun to create optimism for the future. We discover inherent talents through the identification of our strengths. Write your personal Proclamation. It will revolutionize lives. Don’t forget to describe the ways manifesting goals will benefit self and others. While Deepest Desires may evolve and change never give up striving to create them in tangible form. Climb the rungs of the Golden Ladder by committing to specific, tangible behaviors. This will create the Positive Possibilities bringing our dreams into reality.
The Fairy Godmother teaches the more we climb the rungs of our Golden Ladder; purposefully pursuing our dreams, the more we can successfully buffer stress and replace stress with feelings of joy. What are Golden Ladders? They are the actions. Each action is represented by a rung. The Golden Ladder is a symbolic ladder. The rungs are the images in our mind that we identify, transformed into quantifiable behaviors. Actions are required to birth our dreams in reality. Through the rungs, identifying actions, we have a map guiding us to translate dreams married to behaviors, made manifest into the outer world.
All actions have effects and consequences. This is the greatest truth underlying the rungs of Golden Ladder actions. When the tree fell in the forest, you bet it was heard. Every creature nearby was electrified by the tree falling. Some lost their homes. Others found new homes in the now-ground-level branches. The earth reached out and began eating the tree for lunch and dinners far into the future. The tree, digested by the earth, took on this new form. Every action and even non-action has its effects. This understanding is at the heart of the teachings of the Fairy Godmother. Your positive act might be cooking your spouse’s favorite dinner. The ways to create Golden Ladders, encouraging success, are infinite. Endless permutations of rungs reflect the unique qualities of each person. The bottom line? There is no way to avoid acts that generate the specifics of our lives. Golden Ladders with their countless varieties, focused with positive intentions, consciously integrate our dreams into daily life.
My suggestion: Choose ten behaviors—actions—that reflect your Deepest Desires and write them down. Ask yourself, “Do these actions correspond with my Deepest Desires?” Next assess whether these ten actions are behaviors you will commit to. If you don’t enjoy the behaviors associated with your dream you probably will not create a success. Of course there are times we gut our way through projects but in general these rungs of the Golden ladder should excite you. A Golden Ladder defined by behaviors you find boring is a recipe for failure. The actions we pledge to enact tied to Deepest Desires must thrill us. If not ask yourself ‘is this really my Deepest Desire?’
There is a spontaneous reward living on the ladder. This is because we choose acts corresponding to our native talents and strengths. Living life on the rungs of the ladder reconfigures our self-esteem. The more we use our talents and strengths the bigger and stronger they grow. Life on a Golden Ladder grounded in Deepest Desires produces personal power. We feel a growing mastery and optimism for the future.
Let’s have a look at Cinderella’s Golden Ladder. She dreamed of her conversations with the Prince and practiced them in her mind. Visualizing their first meeting is giddy and exciting. Don’t forget, visualization creates a corresponding cascade of neuro-muscular events. Imagery adds to muscle memory literally preparing our body for the corresponding future. The imagination prepares us by leaping across the boundary line of past and future, where time and happenstance, meet. Cinderella has so many questions she wants to ask. Years have passed since their childhood adventures. Imaging their first moments of reunion creates a fluttering in her chest, a cross between excitement and dread. Will he look at her and see only the servant she has become?
Another task on her Golden Ladder is to re-purpose the largest pumpkin in her garden transforming it into a carriage to take her to the ball. Re-purposing our resources, to hold a higher vibration, is a thrill. It is also hard work, some would say drudgery. This is not a problem to Cinderella. Years of unremitting labor have prepared her. She has a large capacity for drudgery. Cinderella’s higher purpose? She is not hollowing out the pumpkin for the sake of hollowing. Her higher purpose is creating a carriage. While she labors, yes, it was back-breaking labor; she is driven by her higher purpose, transportation to the ball. After hollowing and drying the interior pumpkin, she took out her paints and free-hand, drew beautiful designs on the interior and exterior of the pumpkin shell. She lost herself in the beauty. I have trouble finding the words for the ways we create art. While on the one hand we lose ourselves in the moment, on the other hand we are self-assured. We are vitally aware, hypersensitive to the still and wondrous voice guiding our hand, at one with our mind and heart. When Cinderella came back to herself golden swirls were etched into the pumpkin surface creating depth and dimension.
Another rung on the ladder represents her meetings with the Fairy Godmother. Still another rung represents the daily chores of caring for her parent’s home. Sometimes Cinderella can feel her parents looking over her shoulder as she cleaned. Polishing the banister she saw fleeting shadows of light. Scrubbing the floor a gentle stirring of air flew across her shoulders. Sometimes entering the house the fragrance of baking wafting down the hallway. It was a greeting. Remembering the positive times resourced her in the present and brought meaning to her chores. With these memories at the surface she felt more prepared to reconnect with the Prince. As the Fairy Godmother hoped, Cinderella is reminded of the tools of polite conversation. The legacy of skills live on in Cinderella. She practiced simple questions visioning her meeting with the Prince. When Cinderella arrived at the Ball she was composed and confident. Her preparatory imaging initiated her self-esteem. Practice made it easy to talk with the Prince. She is interested in him. They share a history and a quest.
After his recognition and pleasure finding her at the ball, Cinderella relaxed. There was so much to see and watch. Dancing, she’d practiced while doing her chores. Dancing was one of the actions, represented as a rung on her Golden Ladder. All the behaviors of the Golden Ladder were purposeful and fun for her. Make sure your version of Golden Ladder behaviors are as interesting and exciting as Cinderella’s. Because she was strong from housework and drudgery, as Cinderella danced with the Prince she glided, floating across the floor. Her physical conditioning made it easy to carry a conversation while dancing. Yes, sometimes the very things we think of as our problems become advantages.
Cinderella is surprised to find they share a teacher. The Fairy Godmother helped the Prince define his Deepest Desires. They shared stories. Cinderella confessed an instance where she had complained to the Fairy Godmother she felt tricked. The Fairy Godmother told her, “When you’re not ‘trickable’ then you won’t get tricked!” They laughed and shared more stories. Just like old times. By the end of the evening they were new-old-best-friends. It is a simple truth: When we create and implement Golden Ladders, actions tied to Deepest Desires, then dignity and purpose beautify life, embellishing the lives of all those who come into contact with our acts. The Fairy Godmother whispers in Cinderella’s ear, “Never forget within every environment are resources that can be nurtured, expanded, reconfigured, or re-purposed to create the rungs on the Golden Ladder leading to success and happiness.” A Proclamation of personal strategies and a Golden Ladder of intentional activity; both designed to make dreams come true, is a labor of love. The more we focus on positive and intentional activities the more rewarding and pleasant life becomes. Don’t take my word for it. Try it and see.
The Way of the Fairy Godmother is about aligning your Highest Good with your Deepest Desires. I know this sounds ethereal and ephemeral. Start talking to people about Deepest Desires and what life will look like when we achieve them…..even the people who love us will look askance. If we focus on climbing the rungs of our Golden Ladder, if we demonstrate actions associated with Deepest Desires, people will look at us from a different perspective. They’ll say, “Wow, she is really serious about this dream.” People measure us by our actions. Even spiritual power measures our commitment by our acts. When we are deeply immersed in behaviors associated with our goals, unseen hands may help. Let me try Fairytale Speak to describe my Proclamation. “Writing The Way of the Fairy Godmother fulfills a sacred promise I made to the forces which imbue flourishing. After sipping the grace from the chalice of life, it became my Deepest Desire to create tangible ways for others to prosper, to savor, their own version of grace. Writing constitutes climbing the rungs of my own Golden Ladder. To share the chalice of growth and grace, climb your Golden Ladders and manifest Deepest Desires.”
The Fifth Key to Happiness: To create success, design Golden Ladders to manifest Deepest Desires in the everyday world.