Do you believe in magic?

What comes to mind for you when you hear the word “magic”, or “magical”?

When I was a little girl my father promoted a band called The Lovin’ Spoonful, and they had a hit song called “Do you believe in Magic?”  Whenever I hear that song it makes me smile, first because it is nostalgic for me, and secondly because I can answer that question with a “full body YES!!”

Recently I posted a Facebook status that simply said, “I believe in Magic”, and apparently so do quite a few other people, because that status got more than a few “likes”.

I’m sure your definition of magic is unique, and I’m also pretty certain that most of the time when people describe something as “magical” it is because it felt wonderful, it was awe inspiring, it was indescribable, it seemed effortless, and it had qualities that were surreal, surprising, and even wondrous. Would you be okay with creating some magic of your own?

In my world, “magic” shows up as synchronicities, serendipity, miracles, and meaningful coincidences.

According to vedantic philosophy, enlightenment has only 2 symptoms: 1. You stop worrying.  And 2. You experience more meaningful coincidence.

I not saying that I’ve reached enlightenment, but I will say that I’ve made an intention to move in that direction. I’m on the path to enlightenment.  It isn’t always a smooth path, sometimes it’s a hard climb.  I still find myself worrying at times.  And, I experience meaningful coincidence, miracles, or “magic”,  on a regular basis.

There are some things that will bring the search for enlightenment to a screeching halt…or at least a slow crawl, such as judging and labeling.

We live in a culture that judges and labels everything.  We do it automatically. And yet, our level of consciousness is directly related to our lack of judging.

So, if we equate magic with enlightenment, and enlightenment with a higher state of consciousness, then the more judging we do, the less magic we experience.  Simple.

This judgment thing can show up when we are recognizing what we perceive to be someone else’s failures or shortcomings, as well as our own – very often our own.  Self-judgment can sometimes become a continuous stream of background noise that we try to ignore even when it may be creating serious havoc in our lives.

It’s the “I’m not good enough” voice.  The Gremlin that is always pointing out our flaws, the “inner critic” that keeps trying to persuade us that we’ll never make it.   It’s the part of us that keeps comparing our insides to everyone else’s outsides.  (You know…like thinking someone else has a much better life experience than we do because of what we see of them on Facebook.)

In fact, my own inner critic got really loud when I wanted to start talking about my own magic and how it shows up.  “People won’t ‘get it’, they won’t get you”, said the Gremlin.

I got really curious as to why I was feeling that way.  I realized that it just came from fear, as does most (if not all) judging.  I was afraid of rejection, of losing subscribers, of offending someone, of coming off as some kind of wacko.

And then I realized that if I want to step into my power, I had to stop feeling guilty for being powerful, I had to stop being fearful of what people might think and just own it. And owning it meant taking some kind of meaningful action, so I created my new about page.

So, today I want to remind myself, and you, of the tool that will help you create some magic in your life…the tool called Curiosity.

The next time you hear yourself judging yourself or someone else,  get curious instead.

Making the curious sound, “Hmmmm?” (Think Yoda) will immediately change  your neural activity and alleviate worry and catabolic energy (at least momentarily!), because it is impossible to worry or judge and be curious at the same time.

Whether the judging that’s coming up is self-judgment or just a habit of judging others, just for today get curious instead.  See what happens.

To quote Ram Dass “Let’s trade in all our judging for appreciating. Let’s lay down our righteousness and just be together.”

Let’s get curious, and then see what we can instead appreciate about ourselves, about others, about this magical place where we live and grow as we travel towards enlightenment.

We’re all in this together, we’re all human, and it’s all perfect.

Love & Magic (and lot’s of curiosity),