Claiming Deepest Desires: The Ninth Key to Happiness
The Ninth Key to Happiness: Transformation occurs when we release the unwanted, claim the wanted, and perform specific acts that reflect our determination to manifest our Deepest Desires.
Whew! Are you tired yet? Let’s put these keys together into a cohesive whole. Embedded in the teachings of the Fairy Godmother are three steps vital to Cinderella’s transformation. First, the Fairy Godmother asked Cinderella to release her outdated and negative perception of herself. She encouraged Cinderella to identify and claim her Deepest Desires. Together they explored Cinderella’s unique talents and strengths so that she might claim their expression in the future. The Fairy Godmother acknowledged Cinderella’s luminescent spirit and beauty, and her desire to love and be loved. It is all for naught without following through with congruent actions.
Growing up I heard my Dad say, “Actions speak louder than words.” This phrase has become my mantra. A mentor added “Want to know the truth of a given situation? Look at the actions.” Wait. Did she just tell me truth lives in actions not words? Watching my confusion she continued, “Do the words and behavior match? No? The truth you seek is reflected in the actions.” As the Fairy Godmother said, “We are trickable when we listen only to words and ignore the behaviors.” I know it’s hard. We so badly want the words to be the truth. In actions the truth of motivations are reflected. “Look to the behaviors to discern reality.” This is how we go from being trickable to untrickable. As the Fairy Godmother told Cinderella, “When you’re not trickable then you won’t get tricked.”
Is Cinderella ready to let her actions speak for her? Is she ready to create and climb a Golden Ladder of behaviors congruent with her Deepest Desires? These behaviors don’t have to be one hundred and eighty degrees away from our routine. Cinderella claimed her first step by revamping her words to reflect the Fairy Godmother’s positive vocabulary. She began thinking and dreaming of the Fairy Godmother. This gave her such pleasure drudgery transformed into hope. She embraced her Deepest Desires as the seeds to her happiness. She stopped scolding herself for wanting a better life, a better way of living. She embraced her dreams by visualizing conversations with the Prince growing her confidence.
Focusing on success, Cinderella mapped out a Proclamation. Next she made a list of her blockages to success. At the top of the list was despair. After her parent’s deaths doom obscured her future. Rooted in her grief she began to believe her stepmother’s disparagement, believing she didn’t deserve love. The list goes on and on. Sometimes the wounds of the past create fragility. Cinderella lived with a sociopath who distorted reality with half-truths. The half-truths muddled Cinderella’s perception. We all have ways we self-sabotage. Confronting negativity reduces its power. When she understood these barriers to success she burned the parchment describing them. This is a literal and symbolic step toward personal authority. She is clarifying her strengths and releasing weaknesses. Increasing self-understanding creates a ripple effect across the constellations that define Cinderella.
She made another list outlining the rungs of her Golden Ladder. She chooses pleasurable actions like carving and painting the pumpkin. Her behaviors engage her personal strengths. Growing our personal strengths with practice builds mastery. Step by step Cinderella encounters her strengths while designing her plan. As a result these chores didn’t feel like drudgery. They are empowering! Behaviors congruent with Cinderella’s essential self-broaden and deepen her experience of authenticity. It’s a revelation. Letting go of the past, claiming the future with activities congruent with her Deepest Desires is a celebration. It has been a long time since Cinderella felt joy. Climbing the rungs of her Golden Ladder, is the physical manifestation of Cinderella’s dreams in the temporal world. Self-esteem is born out of an exchange of value, behaviors relevant in ordinary reality.
Our spiritual quests need currency in the mundane aspects of life. The key words here are: Spiritual, exchange – value – currency – relevance – material and mundane. Climbing the rungs of our Golden ladder pulls our dreams from the ephemeral into the ordinary. Deepest Desires must have worth in the real world. Remember the Prince’s Proclamation? The Prince’s Proclamation verifies the currency of value to him is a spouse; authentic and loving. Here is an excerpt from Cinderella’s hometown newspaper, The Mythic and Fairytale Gazette, interviewing the Prince.
Mythic and Fairytale Gazette: Tell us about the search for your bride.
Prince: Vulnerable, it’s tough to admit. My quest effects, me, my family, the Kingdom. Everyone living in this country will be affected by a successful marriage. Conversely the Kingdom would be negatively affected by a royal marriage going sour. Growing up I witnessed the divorce of a royal couple. A royal divorce that tore the country apart, even the monarchy was at risk.
Mythic and Fairytale Gazette: True. As a journalist I’ve observed divorce reverberates beyond the couple into the community. It devastates the children. Divorce transforms a safe household into one filled with misery. Friends are affected by a split household. The neighbors are divided. No one wants to be infected by a divorce. How will you avoid the perils of divorce?
Prince: Is there ever a guarantee? Marriage is a great vulnerability. Add in becoming parents and the potential for heartbreak exponentially explodes. A grueling search, I’ve met countless women, all searching for happiness. The search for happiness is universal but as individuals we have different ideas what constitutes happiness. Some search for a specific person. Others wait for an event, or the job, money, power and prestige we believe will make us complete.
The Fairy Godmother trained me for this quest. She is an extraordinary teacher. Now the quest itself has become my teacher. I’ve learned distractions muddle our focus. We lose track of goals, our talents. We become disenfranchised from our strengths. Lost and confused our skills can no longer merge with the practical events of our life. These are the dangers of a quest. I have yet to meet the woman who will become my wife. I ask myself in an endless loop the questions the Fairy Godmother taught me. What do I need to release? What do I need to claim? What are the behaviors required to find my wife?
Mythic and Fairytale Gazette: What will be the secret of success in the relationship you seek?
Prince: Right now I am learning the lessons of rejection hand in hand with dating. Some women are horrified by the responsibilities of a royal marriage. Others are shy. They would prefer to lead quiet lives. My life is not quiet. Women want to know if I am a ‘Royal Pain.’ They view royalty as unreasonable, bossy and difficult at best. Many feel royalty is self- aggrandizing. I have to ask myself, “am I that person?” Dating reveals whether we are a good fit. We’re back to relationships are vulnerable. It is a raw experience to embrace all I am, meet someone new, open my mind and heart for another person to evaluate. We are all seeking the good fit. To answer your question, I’m coming to understand the secret of success in a marriage is finding a relationship of good fit. I believe with the right woman I will become a better man. We will bring out the best in each other. (The prince coughs and takes a drink of water. He continues:) Does the successful marriage carry a spark of something greater? Something more powerful? Fit, shared goals, similar values, the Sacred Spark: Are they synergistic? Does this create love? A love to buoy us when we falter. A love large enough to nourish our strengths and forgive our weaknesses. Once I knew a girl…
Reading the article in the Mythic and Fairytale Gazette (her stepsisters pasted the article on the mirror of their vanity) Cinderella could hardly contain her excitement. The Prince confirmed his commitment to love. Cinderella’s desire to love and be loved has actual value in the real world. To create a new reality we take our invisible dreams and bring them into physical form with action. We are creating either the dream or the nightmare with each behavior. Harsh? Sometimes living in the Great Silence we act in faith while the appearance of life looks and feels like a nightmare. Good intentions without congruent behaviors will not materialize. When thoughts, feelings and actions are congruent, focused on creating a meaningful goal, we are telling the self, the world and the Great Spirit, we are serious. This synthesis of congruency; intention and action, creates the power to drive goals into form. With three steps, claim, release and act, the Fairy Godmother nurtured and encouraged the Positive Possibilities for Cinderella’s future. The Fairy Godmother understands it is not what happens to us in the past that creates our future happiness or unhappiness.
Our happiness is contingent on our abilities to cultivate resilience, resourcefulness and creativity. Tied to Deepest Desires, in service to a greater good, future happiness is built on resources we may have overlooked. Constructing a Golden Ladder of behaviors, climbing the rungs, will lead us toward the goodness in life.
The ability to reinvent life using what is readily available exemplifies the spirit of the Fairy Godmother’s teachings. She’s a quintessential radical. She applies these steps even in the midst of crisis. She models for us, and Cinderella, transforming mice to men, a pumpkin into a coach, her gifts of resiliency, resourcefulness, and creativity. Take a look at your own world through the resourceful and creative eyes of the Fairy Godmother. I promise, there are opportunities to remake your life.
The Ninth Key to Happiness: Transformation occurs when we release the unwanted, claim the wanted, and perform specific acts that reflect our determination to manifest our Deepest Desires.