The One Question that can Change... EVERYthing!

“What do I really, really, really want?”
~Elizabeth Gilbert

 

It’s been said that we are transitioning out of the Information Age and entering the Age of the Artist. As systems are changing and paradigms are shifting, we are moving beyond knowledge and embracing higher levels of conscious thought and intuition.

As we embark on this new age, this time to explore and implement new, creative, ideas to solve the world’s challenges, the world needs YOU. Your talents, your gifts, your creative ideas, and your rebel ways to lift us higher and lead us further.

You hear the call. Something inside of you is inviting you to dream bigger and shine brighter. But how, you ask? How do you answer your heart’s calling when you work, manage your household, perhaps raise a family or care for others? How do you make time to be creative, when your never ending to-do list never ends?

Take it the cushion. It could be your mediation cushion. Or the cushion on your couch. Where ever it is, sit your tushy down, close your eyes, and ask your heart, “What do I really, really, really want?”

In 2008 I saw Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat Pray Love, on Oprah. Liz shared a lot of wisdom she gained while she spent a year traveling through Italy, India, and Indonesia to write her New York Times bestselling memoir. But the nugget that struck me the most was her invitation to ask ourselves, as we go into meditation, “What do I really, really, really want?”

 

Meeting Liz Gilbert at book signing in Colorado in 2009, just 1 month after I moved there
(Detroit was not on her book tour that year)

Liz went on to say that it’s extremely important to ask, “really,” three times. And to emphasis the word the third time you say or think it. Doing so invites your heart to answer honestly.

You may not hear the answer right way. Be patient. And you may not, “hear,” an answer at all. You might see what looks like a sign. Or you might feel a strong intuitive hunch. How ever your Higher Power answers, listen. You’re being guided.

When I began to take the question, “What do I really, really, really want?” into my meditations, my husband Sean and I were renting my Grandparents house back in Michigan. When we weren’t planning our destination wedding, we were busy making home improvements. And we were debating. Should we buy the house where I spent a lot my childhood and start our family there? Or should we relocate to Colorado, a place we had both loved to vacation?
 

Before taking Liz’s, “really want,” question into meditation, I felt conflicted. I loved my Grandparent’s house. I had so many fond memories there – both as a child, and as Sean and I began to create our life together. And we had the opportunity to purchase the house at a really great price. Plus, it had everything we wanted if we were going to start a family: multiple bed rooms, a fenced in yard, and a 2-car garage. But I was hesitant to commit.

After a week, maybe two, of taking Liz’s, “really want,” question into meditation I began to hear the still small voice. For me, it sounds like my voice, yet not my voice, whispering in my ear, over my shoulder. I know, crazy right? But she’s never steered me wrong... Anyway, the answer I heard in response to, “What do I really, really, really want?” was, “paint.”

Paint? Yes, paint! But I already was painting! Dry wall. We were tearing down old wall paper that my Grandfather had hung 25 years earlier and we were repainting all of the walls in the house.

Confused by the answer I was hearing, I kept taking Liz’s, “really want,” question into meditation. And I kept hearing the same answer. Paint.

Paint? And then it dawned on me. I had begun painting again, on canvas, a few years earlier when I studied with Detroit artist Shadia Zayed. But after we began renting my Grandparent’s house, and started making home improvements, I had stopped creating.

Finally, after months of feeling conflicted over the different life paths I could follow, I knew, with conviction, what I wanted. A simpler life. Where I had time to paint – on canvas, not dry wall – just for me, just for the joy of it.

 

Eating wedding pastries after eloping, August 2012

So we didn’t buy my Grandparent’s house or start a family. Instead, we relocated to Colorado where we still rent. And when something breaks, we call maintenance and they fix it. And we cancelled the elaborate destination wedding we were planning. Instead, we eloped at city hall. And these days, the only time I paint dry wall is in public spaces, to patch up holes from a previous art show.

Live creatively – the way you really, really, really want to,
Marcella