Pre-morning jitters

   I love this photograph because it reminds me of the terror that ate away at me the night before.
    You see, I’m really uncomfortable on and in ocean water, despite the fact that my husband Davy (wearing the cap) and I cruise our boat L’Esprit all over the Pacific Northwest.
    The night before this picture was taken, we were in B.C.’s Shoal Bay, along with our friends Darryl and Joan. Darryl had promised us that he wouldn’t just take us out fishing in his Boston Whaler, but he’d take us out to catch fish. Boy, I couldn’t wait, because I

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love to fresh-water fish on lakes. But, boy, was I also scared out of my wits. I almost begged off the trip because of my fears.
    All I really wanted was to feel happy.
    Obviously, this was a job for The Happiness Path!
    When I asked myself what I feared, I quickly realized I didn’t want to feel unsafe in an open boat in rough water, nor did I want to feel trapped.     Okay, that’s logical. But what did I want instead? I immediately got out my little Creating Notebook, and wrote: I want to feel safe, I want all three of us to catch a Chinook, and I want this all to be over with quickly so we can get back to our bigger boats. I took a moment to imagine how it felt to have created all this, but didn’t spend an ounce of time wondering how it would happen. The imagining left me feeling tingly and happy, a good sign that my creative energy was at work.
    Morning arrived. As we stood on the dock preparing to board the     Whaler, I felt excited, but a little jittery. So I revisited my imagining from the night before, which calmed me. We left Shoal Bay at 7 a.m. Darryl drove the Whaler five miles to the fishing grounds along Sonora Island. I thought we’d never arrive. But we did. The water was choppy from wind piping through Johnstone Strait, but I was okay. Darryl had a new green hoochie he’d heard about and bought, and so he was anxious to try it out.  He asked Davy to pick a number between one and a hundred. That was the number Darryl added to the two-hundred feet of line he’d already let out through the down rigger.
    Within minutes, we had our first Chinook, or king, salmon. It was glorious. I looked around at the twenty other boats. No one else seemed to be catching a thing. In twenty minutes, we’d caught another big Chinook. Other boats started milling around us to spy on our technique. In another half hour, we’d caught yet another big Chinook, while everyone else’s luck seemed to have disappeared.
    With the third Chinook, we had a discussion. Did we need to catch more? Where would we put them? We didn’t need to be piggish. ..So we went back to Shoal Bay before the wind picked up even more.
    All during the ride home I was smiling because I realized I’d created all three things I’d listed in my Creating Notebook the night before. I didn’t have to know how to create it. I just knew I wanted to create it!
    Do you have a similar creating story? Send it to me so I can share it with others.

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“The book is concise and to the point. The author does not ramble on with personal stories either. It is clear cut and to the point. You will learn how to dig deep within yourself to discover past criticisms and old beliefs that are holding you down, change them and recreate your life in wonderful ways and manifest/create an awesome future! I think this is the best book I have ever read in my life!” M. Vertalino

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