10.09.07
Posted in Law of Attraction, Make Your Life Easier, Manifestation, Paths to Bliss
at 2:22 pm
I’ve pretty much always been a die-hard fan of the idea that action is what brings results (not surprising considering the world we live in operates on this idea for the most part). First, you plan and set goals. Next, you employ discipline by taking action towards those goals. Finally, you react to circumstances and with luck and flexibility you will meet your goals and get results. It’s completely logical and very satisfying because there’s a lot of control in that process.
There’s a lot about that process that did not produce feelings of happiness for me though. Many times, the whole planning thing eluded me because I didn’t actually know what to do or how to plan for what I
wanted. Often the action that I thought I should take wasn’t fun or reinforced a story that didn’t feel right to me. Sometimes even if I had planned and taken action, the results didn’t come or didn’t conform to my expectations. I began to believe that there was something wrong with how I was approaching the process or with my discipline or with the goals I had set. I lost confidence in my intuition and got stuck in a big “I don’t know” cycle: I don’t know how to plan for this, I don’t know what steps to take, I don’t really know what I want, so how can I plan or take action, if I can’t take action I can’t go anywhere, I’m stuck but the only way to get unstuck is to do something, etc. Yuck!
Lately, though, I’ve discovered that the most liberating, happy-making thought I can have is “I don’t know.” It’s a big leap, I realize, but the reason “I don’t know” is so hard is that typically we attach fear to it as if not knowing will bring us misery and only knowing will bring us what we want. But what if we don’t have to know anything? What if good things can happen to us without knowing how and when they will come and without knowing exactly what we want? What if doing something is beside the point? (How does that thought make you feel? A little scared at not having control over the process maybe? Good! That’s exactly where I’m poking you. Poke. Poke.)
The Law of Attraction (1. Ask, 2. Answer, 3. Receive) says that if you ask for something and then come into alignment with it, you will have it every time. At no point during this process do you have to know anything.
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10.04.07
Posted in Law of Attraction, Make Your Life Easier, Paths to Bliss, Positive Thinking
at 12:17 pm
To the person who came to the blog after searching “feeling sad when trying to do positive thinking,” it’s only natural. We’ve been trained that things need to be hard. Here’s some comfort though (hopefully): You don’t have to feel awesome all the time. We encounter things that make us sad so we can ask for the things that make us happy. The contrast is how we grow and fine-tune our preferences. Further, it’s just not possible to go from feeling sad to feeling blissful. It’s too big of a leap and there’s no way to access thoughts of bliss when we feel down.
The way to stop feeling sad is to choose to take a little step towards feeling better and generating a feeling of relief. If you’re depressed, the feeling that may bring you relief from depression might be anger. So get angry. If you’re feeling disillusioned, the feeling that may bring you relief could be optimism. Just step as high as you can in any given moment. Reach for thoughts that bring relief and as you reach for them keep asking, “Do I feel better or worse?”
The beauty of this is that you will immediately feel some relief, and the more you do it the better you will feel. The other fun part of this process is that the more you do it, the more it will become an unconscious process and you’ll feel bad less and less. The ideal is looking forward to contrast as you realize that the contrast is helping to bring you what you actually want.
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10.03.07
Posted in Law of Attraction, Make Your Life Easier, Paths to Bliss, Positive Thinking
at 8:55 am
There’s a great post over at The M.A.P. Maker about thought redirection.
Have you ever tried not to think of something, only to have that something dominate your thoughts? There’s a famous experiment where researchers told the subject to try not to think of a white bear and then had them blurt out whatever came into their mind over the next five minutes.
What dominated their thoughts? You got it. White bears.
Here’s an article that suggests it’s the same with our negative thoughts. Trying not to think those thoughts will only make them breed like bunnies.
The trick, according to the article, isn’t suppression, it’s redirection…
For those of us on the positive thinking path, we’re acquainted with the spiral of negative thinking. We believe that positive thinking creates good in our lives so when we have negative thoughts we worry that we’re undermining that and then by thinking that we’re undermining positive thinking we’re making it worse which leads to being upset which leads to us thinking it will be worse etc. etc. etc.
The article referenced in the post has a great alternative to help snap us out of our negative thoughts: ask yourself a question (specifically about how you can turn the situation around or about what your goals are). I would take this idea further by suggesting that you turn the situation around. Whatever subject you’re feeling negative about, you can redirect those thoughts by thinking, “This situation is a blessing because …” or “This situation is helping me learn something about myself because …”
I love this idea for a couple of reasons. First, it’s a constructive way to let go of our negative thoughts and/or face our fear. If we run away from our negative thoughts instead of trying to figure out why they’re there, they just take up that much more attention (often in the background, churning away). If we can turn them around and look at things in a more positive light, the fear and negativity will dissipate before we spend too much time on them. Second, the more you look for the blessing in the curve balls life throws at you, the easier it will be to find blessings all around you. Things that would typically phase you become opportunities for growth and passion.
My go to blessing is that the contrast in our lives helps us ask for what we want. In other words, every time we see or experience something we don’t want, we ask for what we do want. And the Universe always says yes.
What blessings are around you?
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09.27.07
Posted in Law of Attraction, Manifestation, Positive Thinking, Visualization
at 10:44 am
I was reading an interesting article about focused attention and Roger Federer (probably the best player in tennis if you’re not a sports type person). I found the link at a blog I like to read and he liked the article because it deals with Federer’s ability to “save” his concentration for his matches. I thought it was an interesting idea, so I went and read it and found a gem that totally relates to the Law of Attraction. First, here’s the quote (emphasis mine):
Federer has inspired an army of purple prose-writing editorialists to write encomiums to his play. Often the questions he is asked tend to come with a subtext of, “Your genius far exceeds these other guys, huh?” 
Further, writers tend to explain his dominance as a form of better thinking. But, during the U.S. Open, Federer often downplayed the amount of thinking and conscious effort he needs to put into playing tennis. It’s as if he’s trying to say, “Guys, I just go out there and play my game. I’m not a ballet dancer or an aeronautical engineer. I’m a tennis player, and I react to what happens out there.”
At this stage of his career, Federer more and more resembles Pete Sampras in his approach to winning. It’s not about the other guy, it’s about what you know you will summon from yourself at times of need. I suppose winning as much as those two guys have builds something more than confidence, something like faith.
Federer has that faith (and so did Rod Laver, judging by some fascinating comments Rosangel put up on the “Simply the Best?” post). And he’s less strategic than many analysts would have you believe. He’s not out there thinking all that consciously about slicing followed by the deep topspin forehand followed by the dropshot. His is an athletic genius, after all, and as he says, “it goes too fast.” Instead, he uses his mind to make sure he’s ready to concentrate at those crucial moments he is so good at identifying, and once there, doing what comes to him. That’s what I think he meant when he said, after Isner, “it’s all in the mind and it’s all in the moment.“
My favorite part of that is that it’s not about anyone else, it’s about what we know about ourselves. And further, it’s about unwavering focus on what we know. We’re all not Roger Federer, obviously, but we all don’t want to be great tennis players either. This is a great reminder to evaluate what we know about ourselves and what we want. It’s important to throw away all those thoughts that don’t make us feel good and selectively focus on the thoughts that make us feel great and empowered. Once our attention is focused more on knowing that were capable of doing, everything we set our attention to than on what we specifically need to do, the details will take care of themselves.
By focusing our attention selectively that way, our manifestation process becomes a question of what (what we want) not how (what the Universe does to bring it to us). (Say that to yourself a hundred times: I need to focus on what not how. What not how.) One thing I’ve been saying over and over to myself when I worry about something is, “I don’t know how this is all going to work out, but I know it will. The Universe always says yes.” and I stop worrying. (Sometimes for about ten minutes and then I say the same thing to myself again.)
What do you know about yourself? What are some of the things that you naturally assume? What can you do to tweak those things to make each moment better for yourself?
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08.18.07
Posted in Law of Attraction, Make Your Life Easier, Manifestation, Paths to Bliss
at 11:48 pm
So you’ve been working hard reaching for better thoughts and facing your fears. Or maybe you’ve been working hard at thinking about reaching better thoughts and facing your fears. But things still kind of suck, but you don’t want to think about how they suck because that would just make it worse right? But if you’ve been working hard and things still suck at some point they either have to turn around or you will start to doubt that you have control over things after all. And you really, really don’t want to doubt things. But they keep creeping in and just when you thought they were going to get better, they kind of got worse.
So then you wonder if this is the “healing crisis” you’ve heard about—where during the healing process, things get worse before they get better because you’re getting at core beliefs. Healing or not, it’s definitely a crisis. You’ve got bills to pay and work to do and a life to live and what if this whole line of reasoning is bullshit? And then you struggle to nip that line of reasoning in the bud. But damn, it’s not fair how easy it is to slip into a terror spiral, but how hard it is to claw your way to a positive thought. Why is that anyway? And while you’re on the subject, why are doughnuts really bad for you, but twigs and leaves are great?
“Why can’t things be easy?” you ask. Where’s your found winning lottery ticket? Where is your miracle? How long do you have to work at being happy before you’re actually happy? How long do you have to pay for old mistakes? Why can’t you watch The Secret or read Think and Grow Rich and then automatically get it and never have to struggle again? Why couldn’t you remember what you knew before you were born? Why are you so far from where you want to be? How long are you going to have to imagine where you want to be instead of looking around at what is?
If that sounds even remotely familiar, I have an answer for you. It may not be what you want to hear, you may wish you knew me in person so you could drive to Denver and smack me. That being the case, I’ll work up to it by saying that all of those questions are my questions. So if they’re familiar to you, know that we are soul mates. The answer is a poem dedicated to me. So here it is:
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08.07.07
Posted in Law of Attraction, Make Your Life Easier, Paths to Bliss, Resources
at 7:09 am
Many of you have been playing with the idea of manifestation. You’ve bought into the idea (mostly) that your thoughts actually create what’s going on in your life and if you’re anything like me, that idea has probably filled you with empowerment and dread. “I can create the things I want? Awesome!” “All the crap in my life is my own doing? Gaargh!” This post will be my attempt to remove at least some of the dread from the amazing process of deliberate creation and has been inspired by the book The Amazing Power of Deliberate Intent by Esther and Jerry Hicks. The book gelled a lot of ideas that I couldn’t quite reach and has been an invaluable resource in my growth process.
First a refresher: The Law of Attraction states that there are three steps to manifesting what we want. The first step is asking which happens a thousand times a day—every time we have a preference for something. We cannot help but ask and even though we are compelled to drum the point home, focusing on asking for the things we want is unnecessary because our wanting does it for us. The second step is the answering which the Universe does for us so once again our attention is not necessary. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that our attention to how the things we want will come into our lives only limits possibilities and is usually detrimental to the process. The third step is receiving and this is the part of the process that requires our full focus. That is the step I’m going to be talking about in this post.
I’m going to cut right to the chase and tell you that the crap in our lives serves a very useful function. The experiences we don’t want are here to inspire desire for what we do want. If we encounter someone who is mean to us, we automatically ask the Universe to be surrounded by people who treat us with respect. If we can’t pay our bills, we automatically ask to be surrounded by abundance. If our cars break down, we automatically ask to have reliable transportation. If we never had displeasing experiences, we would never feel the joy of the creative process and its results.
Why, oh why, do they have to hang around though, right? If their purpose is to help us ask for things, why don’t they go away after we ask? They stick around because we are focusing our attention on the asking and on why we’re asking instead of receiving what the Universe always brings us in reply. So, we can’t pay our bills and we automatically ask to be surrounded by abundance. And instead of thinking, “Oh yay! This unpaid bill was a reminder that I want abundance and now I’ve asked and now it will naturally flow into my life because the Universe always answers yes! I’m so glad I couldn’t pay my bill!” we think, “I hate the fact that I can’t pay my bills. I wish I had more money. My bank account is so empty. I don’t even want to look at these bills.” Even though the Universe always answers yes and is responding by bringing abundance into our lives we cannot bring it into physical manifestation until we know—until we feel—that it is here.
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05.16.07
Posted in Law of Attraction, Manifestation, Paths to Bliss
at 7:50 am
I’ve been running into a lot of good posts about striving to reach a state of allowing–a place where you’re happy where you are and look towards what’s coming with anticipation. For me that has been the most challenging part of the Law of Attraction. I’m great at wanting things, but balancing contentment with wanting more has often alluded me. I wrote a long comment in response to this post about raising my vibrational state and I thought I would reproduce it here:
The “allowing†part has always been the most challenging part of the process for me. There is this contradiction between being happy with now while avoiding thinking about the reality of the things I want to change. And how do I think of a better thought about something that stresses me out?
There are a couple of things I’ve found that help me come to terms with the idea of reaching a state of contentment while trying to feel better. First I work on the contentment part: I meditate on the idea that things are the way they are for a reason and I pair it with the idea that the Universe loves me and wants me to be happy so nothing in my life is here to harm me. Rather, everything is here to help me grow and become a more complete person.
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