MKE Week 1 – Giraffes

I took a spare shirt with me on my 24 hour journey to visit my mom on the other side of the planet. Journeys like that can get pretty gross and I like to feel clean in between flights. I had just purchased it at a surf comp in my temporary town. It was a really cool design with stylized surfers and patterned waves.

As I was walking through the airport, having changed into my new shirt, exhausted from the 12 hour flight I had just disembarked from, looking for my next gate, a water fountain, and a decent meal, a man shouted out to me.

“Giraffes!” What?! “Do you like giraffes?!” Pointing to my shirt. I looked down. I guess my shirt did kind of look like giraffe patterns if you squint. “Oh, no, this is a surf comp tee, see?” He was undeterred. “I like giraffes. Here, have my book, it’s a bestseller.”

I took the book and looked down at the cover. There were giraffes there. Hmm, I thought, this could change my life. I shouted after him, “this could change my life!” I don’t think he cared, he was already walking away smiling. I liked that he hadn’t given up on me. He had pushed through my distraction and tiredness to give me something with absolutely no strings attached. Powerful stuff.

I was curious. I took the book onto my next 6 hour plane ride and started to read it. By the end of the first segment I was actually very impressed. This book actually resonated with me! I read the first four weeks as instructed but I was curious about the course it mentioned and so went online to look it up, and here we are.

From the time I was about 11, I have been using the power of thought to influence my life. I remember staying up journaling in the moonlight, writing all the things about myself that are true, yet not yet “true” and allowing myself to feel how it feels when all those things are true.

I told myself I was confident and radiated love, when I was actually a gawky insecure pre-teen with almost no friends. I told myself that I was beautiful and smart and funny too. By the end of high school I was confident, accomplished, and loved by many. It worked!

I’m not sure where I learned this secret. I shared it with my best friend at the time and she wrote me a letter describing how it had taken her out of a big depression. That’s pretty big stuff for 12 year olds. At 15, I became friends with a Tibetan monk who seemed to beam up and out from his feet. He said he saw something special in me too.

Maybe I learned how powerful suggestion is when I, at 9 years old, moved to a new school and followed my mothers advice to smile the whole day through. Not only did I survive the first day, I thrived. People were jumping over each other to give me candy and asking to be my best friend.

That only lasted until the shame of being among the poorest in the district prevented me from developing any of the connections offered to me though. However, I also had the mindset that my family’s financial situation was “always improving” and to this date, it has continued to improve.

Somewhere along the way, though, I forgot how to use this super power, and I am only recently, remembering how to wield it again.

I am curious if this course will expand the methods I have used in the past, or explain why some things I have tried to think into being have failed. Writing my DMP feels awkward and different to how I used to write in the moonlight and I’m struggling to get my questions formed enough to ask.

I guess I’ll start by saying “I am smart enough to figure this out” and believing that feels great!