5 SHOCKING THINGS I LEARNED AT MY BOOK SIGNING

1)   In a word, gratitude. Please don’t tune out like I usually do when I hear this word. I don’t like to talk about it because the concept often seems trite and has been done to death. But, gratitude is important because it is the gate through which all blessings and miracles enter. It’s the gateway, because, in order to receive a blessing or miracle, I have to perceive and recognize it. For me, that can’t happen, when I’m living in my intellect. Gratitude only resides in the heart.

 

2)   I learned that I am the luckiest person alive, and 90 percent of the time I am unaware of it. I learned that I have the best friends and family in the world, and that more often than not, the miracles and blessings I’m looking and praying for, are embodied in these people.

 

 

3) I don’t recognize it most of the time, because my intellect is the biggest deterrent to faith and gratitude, and often my worst enemy. Any effort to control, any attempt resist what is actually happening in favor of what I want to happen, is futile and may erect a fence through which the blessing, the miracle, or the divine connection is blocked.

 

4) Success has nothing to do with book sales. Success for me as an artist has evolved to be about who receives my message and carries it on.  The people meant to get it will get it.

~                                      ~

I wrote a book called, Undamned, about a year ago, because I felt called to write it. Commercialism never entered my frame of reference. The result was a book that is hard to classify or “ market” because it is a combination of slam poetry, Spiritual Detox program, and memoir, using my own life as a parable.

For a long time, I couldn’t get a book signing to save my life. Being an ambitious goal-driven sort with a human heart, it was hard for me to process or accept this, until one day, it wasn’t.

That day, I was again unchained. I joyfully started work on my second book, re- acquainting myself with the creative process that gives my life purpose and joy and connects me to my ultimate Source.

Within 72 hours, I received notice that I was to be part of a multi- author signing at my own personal Mecca, Book People. This was the dream I didn’t dare dream for myself.

Every artist’s nightmare of having an event where no one comes did not happen. I learned that I have the best friends and family anyone could hope for, who showed up in the almost freezing rain, many from some distance, for me.

Blessing—check. Miracle—check.

It couldn’t have been any better. It was fun, stimulating and the other authors are all amazing people I’d like to get to know better, which brings me to lesson # 5:

5) Blessings happen when they happen. Miracles happen every day. But, I have to let them fall, like rain. God has no set office hours. Someone up there consistently has bigger dreams for me than I even dare ponder, and that someone has a wicked sense of humor and timing.