I have had a curious experience which, I hope, will give you a lift just as the featured stories here have done for me. I work for a top organization in my country and the pandemic lockdown has made it mandatory for us to do more to stay relevant. Last month, in a sort of desperate action, I called my team leader and shot off an idea for a project that was very vague, even to my mind. My team leader was, coincidentally, reading a book on the subject I had proposed and agreed to my project plan enthusiastically.

There I was, with a deadline to submit a project proposal and absolutely no idea how to go about it, not the least of which was because the pandemic had ensured that I couldn’t travel to my site, which was thousands of miles away in the middle of two rivers.

I do breathing exercises in the morning and, at one point, it struck me that I could do the project in complete collaboration with the Universe. You know how The Secret talks about “letting go”. I could never do that. What is “letting go”? How do you do it? What does it look like? So, I decided to do what I could fathom conceptually. I decided that I would practice “Zero Motility”, which is that my action to the project would be exactly zero.

When you are desperate, you clutch at straws. I practiced zero motility perfectly. I didn’t even start working on the project for a week because I was busy doing something else. My project leader called to ask how it was going and I told her that a cyclone had brought down my wi-fi, which was true, and it had been restored only that day, which was false by 24 hours. All during this time, especially as I did the dishes because domestic help isn’t allowed during the lockdown, I kept saying, “Thank you for my amazing job. Thank you for my amazing project.”

I should say that I ‘moved into’ the project naturally. I interviewed people for long hours, made detailed plans and, surprise, surprise, enjoyed every bit of it. These are, routinely, very stressful actions but I was really having fun and I wasn’t even trying. When I wanted to, I would leave work and go bake a cake. I think I baked more than two cakes! Please believe me, this is unthinkable when you are working on a major project.

My sign from the Universe is a rainbow and I was seeing rainbows everywhere! On Instagram, when a friend made a rainbow cake for her son’s birthday, aquatic animals that emit rainbow colors and all sorts of amazing things. Once, I even saw a rainbow in bright sunlight on my morning walk. Another time, I looked up from my laptop and there was a rainbow, actually two, right outside the door and up in the sky. It was also ‘Pride’ month so there were even more rainbows.

The project turned out to be a lyrical delight. My seniors called and messaged me to compliment me. It was a very complicated subject. Now, here’s the thing. I wanted the absolute top bosses to put up their compliments on the office group but that never happened. A lot of people had good things to say but not them. This, perhaps, fits in with a belief that I always hold back when it comes to expecting the ultimate prize. It’s like I don’t want the gold, and silver medal will do. Regardless, here are the inspired actions I took and I hope it helps you:

1. Zero motility. It works.

2. Just keep saying thank you for the fabulous end product. Even when it’s going nowhere

3. During this time, I used to go for morning walks down the road and say thank you for everything, the birds, trees, rubble, dogs and their humans, shuttered shops, a crooked lamppost, a row of public cycles, everything. It enriched my walk and, I think, it had something to do with the burst of love from the Universe I experienced during my project.

Keep the faith. It makes sense as you go along. Thank you, Rhonda, and thank you to The Secret team, you are the best.
Thank you to everybody who has posted here and big hugs and gratitude for all of you who make up The Secret community.