Sharing some personal emails

Further to my now infamous rose and thorns post, Elena and I continued our conversation offline (or online, but offblog). She suggested I share our emails and I agree, so here they are. Now you can see why I love having her as a friend!

(P.S. They're in reverse order; newest first... sorry!)
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FROM ELENA TO ME:

I know, so do I - you need to move, I've decided.

BTW, I also think you should post these exchanges on your blog, if only in the comments section.

I second that you are an incredibly positive person. Actually I would go so far as to say that you are a force of nature, and you should understand that to mean that in every possible way, you are an expression of nature, of the life-giving force in the universe. that is why I insist that you are a creator of your life, rather than just an observer. And I'm pretty sure you won't argue with that. But I think you sometimes forget who you are, as I forget who I am, in the daily details and little annoyances.

And that's all I have to say about that. For now.

FROM ME TO ELENA:

I love our exchanges.

Even if my words do create my world (and visa versa, I'm sure), as you say, then I don't believe that an imbalance between positive and negative words makes my world either positive or negative. For me, personally, and I think for a lot of other British people (at least that I have known in 32 years), the ability to voice negatives enables us to let them go. It's cathartic. I view my life as extremely positive - my everyday demeanor and experience reflects that - and I think my ability to make that happen for myself is a result of this process of flushing the negative thoughts out of my head and into the world. It enables me to move on. I find that when I hold things like that in, I only ruminate on them needlessly and create stories around them that makes them bigger than they are. Once they're said, shared, out there in the "world", I find they feel smaller, more manageable. THIS IS my way of maintaining control over my reality. Get the negative out and only the positive remains! :)

I wish we lived closer to one another.


FROM ELENA TO ME:

Precisely! what you just said does not contradict my point, but rather supports it: what if rather than your words describing your world, they create your world? does that not give you a great deal more control over how your life goes? of course, this requires being your word, merely saying stuff doesn't mean a thing unless you follow through, which is your point, isn't it? all I'm saying is that if you are a person of your word, which you are, what you say shape your actions shape your reality. does that track? and then you get to say how your life goes, even if you don't know how you'll fulfill on what you promise, but somehow being your word makes things happen. i know you've had the experience of making a promise, or saying you'd do something, and had no idea how you'd do it, and somehow it happened, in a way that you didn't think possible. consider that it was the action of (metaphorically) throwing your hat over the fence that opened up a space for stuff to happen that you couldn't have predicted.

and this also ties into your very valid insight about intention. if what you say reflects your intention, it just magnifies the power of your intention, doesn't it?

of course, this doesn't mean you should pretend all is well when it isn't. acknowledging how things are is key, all I'm suggesting is taking it a step further - acknowledge what is not working or what you're upset about etc, then create something new. and honestly i think you know how to do that already.

FROM ME TO ELENA:

And on this point we'll have to agree to disagree. I think your actions shape your reality; that words are only as good as the deeds behind them.

ORIGINAL COMMENT FROM ELENA:

e has left a new comment on your post "Stopping to smell the roses? I'm stuck on the thor... ":

Oh, I do think that you have a greta insight when you say that Americans believe that if they speak positively reality will follow. It's not as easy as all that, unfortunately, but that is definitely that element. And, from my own personal experience, what comes out of my mouth creates my world and my reality. That may be true of many other people. Again, lots lots more to say about this, but I'll just leave it at that.