I’m having a fight with Charlotte. Charlotte watches me. I watch Charlotte. Charlotte is a lot smaller than me, but she still scares me.

I first met Charlotte- or Charlotte’s work– when I saw a little web over a picture frame in my bathroom window. I cleaned it off and forgot about it. A few days later, I noticed it again. I took everything off the window sill and scrubbed it down. A few days later – there it was again.

This happened 2 more times. I couldn’t ever see the creator of the web, but she was certainly persistent.

“Where was this master spinner at?”

Does she have a home that she spends time at and her web is just her workplace that she goes to at certain hours? A few days later, I finally captured the elusive spinner as she sat admiring her work, I’m sure.

Dang, it was a white spider which my superstitious Mom (rest in peace) always said never to kill or it would bring bad luck.

So here I was, seemingly held hostage by a tiny monster that I didn’t dare get rid of. Things were just starting to look wonderful, I didn’t need any more bad luck.

I didn’t dare risk it. So here we sit. Charlotte ruling the house from behind her magical screen like some wizard of oz behind the curtain.

As I watched this video by Joe Dispenza, it occurred to me that like him, Charlotte is more concerned with the future than the past. She doesn’t care how many times her home is wrecked, she’s gonna rebuild. Whatever my thoughts or opinions are about her, she won’t let it stop her. She’s gonna do her thing to live and survive the best she can.

What can I learn from this meager little powerhouse of an insect? That no matter what anyone else says or does, we can stay true to our own purpose, to our own joy and satisfaction.

We can spin our web however we want to. It’s OUR story. OUR pain, our joy.

Of course, connecting with others is human. We can’t really hide in a corner and entrap anything that comes along with vitriol and spitefulness. But we can heal enough so that we aren’t affected by others’ actions.

We can then open our hearts with love which like Joe says in turn opens up our neurons that expand [just like a spider web] and leads our brains to new ideas and learning. Staying stuck closes us off from open hearts and open minds.

How to heal? How to change our thoughts?

Joe describes it as waking up in the morning with a blank slate and NOT by focusing on our problems from yesterday. How much webbing could Charlotte get done if all she thought about was Euyore-like thoughts “It will probably just get crushed by some giant human hand in a giant white paper towel? Why even try?”

It’s fine to think about what needs to be done to fix things but not things that are out of our control. Joe says to use our thoughts to reaffirm our future – not to condition us to stay stuck in our past.

He states the way to do this is by visualizing your affirming thoughts. In other words, think about what kind of person you want to be such us loving and kind, not reactive and suspicious. Think of things you want to have happen. Things you want to do. Your brain doesn’t know the difference of whether you’re actually doing it or not, so it will start creating new proteins that reflect those activities and characteristics. This is actually creating a new YOU!

He talks about achieving “coherence between brain and heart” which makes synchronicity that creates a “laser focus” of information back and forth. This helps with stress, and reactivity, with patterns that no longer serve us. It creates new thoughts which turn into actions that create more opportunities in our lives so we don’t feel stuck in this web of negativity.

My hope is that we can use our magic to spin our webs of love. To catch joy and light into the strands of thoughts we produce. To reaffirm our beauty and our true selves into our own webs of life. To be able to find where our power and peace lie- free from past conditioning so we can be open to receiving more love and peace.