Whacking the Piñata

Yesterday I posted this on Facebook: Laura Bruno has been whacking a cosmic piñata for quite some time now and can feel it about to burst. 🙂

Some people got a real kick out of it, but I wasn’t kidding. I really have intended into being this giant piñata of blessings, and I really do spend a huge amount of time and energy whacking away at it. It’s a pretty pinata, swings all over the place when I hit it, and I like to imagine what’s inside. This analogy led to a discussion with a good friend of mine, who likened my determination to their own sense of beating their head against a wall in several areas of life. I decided to share my emailed response because so many people seem to feel the same way. This was a personal correspondence so it’s a little “earthier” than some of my typical posts, but cleaning it up would have sterilized the message:

Given my medical history, I’m sure you understand why I no longer make it a practice to beat my head against a wall. 🙂 Nor do I recommend it to anyone else. A brain injury will give you change, but it also might kill you, it’s completely unpredictable, and even if it does work, there are SO many easier, faster, and less painful ways!

As I see it, the difference between me whacking my cosmic piñata of blessings all day and night long and you beating your head against the wall is this:

Beating your head against a wall will very quickly make you unconscious and it stems from frustration and not looking around you. Why are you banging your head against the wall when there’s a whole room behind you? Why don’t you look for the door? And if you can’t find a door, just ask me; I paint them!! I will make you a door … and I’m really not kidding. I make doors for myself all the time, physical, mental, emotional, spiritual … I am always painting and walking through portals. Walls are boring, especially the same wall over and over again. But portals … now those actually lead somewhere. … and you don’t even need ME to paint you one. You can find your own; they pop up in the most surprising places if you’re open to finding them.

Whacking my cosmic piñata, even if I whack it just as many times as you beat your head against the wall, is VERY different. First of all, I’m using an energetic “stick,” which is very large and gives me a lot of leverage. I can hit it much harder than I could w/ my head. Second, I am not damaging myself or anyone else with these hits, so I can continue to whack that thing with massive determination until it explodes all over me. I won’t be in a stupor when it happens, and that’s important, b/c there are good things in that piñata and I don’t want to miss any of them. I put them in there and I intend to savor each one of them with every ounce of consciousness I have on any and all levels. They are REALLY good things. 🙂

But most importantly, the energy of the piñata is completely different. Banging your head against the wall says, “I can’t, Ow, it hurts, I can’t, Ow, it hurts, I can’t, Ow, it hurts,” whereas whacking my pinata yells into the universe: “I want it and I want it bad. Give it to me.” It’s a joyful command with an expectation of fulfillment.

I ALWAYS get what I want. I know this. Even the things in life like my head injury got me what I wanted. I had 4 years off work for spiritual growth. I’ve written 3 books, including a novel. I traveled to all these cool places and lived like a bohemian for 8 years. That’s all I ever wanted from graduate school and I got it w/o having to sit through all those dreadful classes and listen to all those academics over sherry hour.

Granted, the migraines, disability, private detectives, court, etc. really sucked, so now I just paint portals and whack piñatas instead of beating my head against a wall. No more brain injuries. I still WANT. I still intend to get, and I know that I will. But having gone “down the road” a few times, I now only take interesting routes. Walls bore me, but doors and piñatas I like.

There Is a Way

The intellect says: “The six directions are limits: there is no way out.”
Love says: “There is a way. I have traveled it thousands of times.”
The intellect saw a market and started to haggle;
Love saw thousands of markets beyond that market.

–Rumi

🙂 Have a good one … I’m off my soapbox before all the “good” folks track me down and try to make me wash my mouth out w/ it. Time to whack the piñata. OMG, that sounds obscene! I like it. 🙂 And I will like it even more when it spews those blessings all over me. I’m telling you, they’re coming.