About Time

May 5th, 2012

Imagine time as where you live, specifically, where your soul resides.

Multitudes of people reside emotionally in the past.  Some live in dim cottages of negative experiences, foraging scraps of hurt, anger, regret, resentment, grief, isolation, etc.  Some live in brittle castles of former glory, feasting on pride (or humility), devotion, satisfaction, gloating, etc.

Hoards of people reside emotionally in the future.  Some live in bleak hovels of fear, existing on an unpleasant diet of alarm, scarcity, worry, misgiving, dread, doubt, etc.  Some live in vague edifices of fantasy, reaching for the empty fruit of desire, expectancy, greed, lust, impatience, etc.

Minorities of people reside emotionally in the present, dining regularly on acceptance, wonder, curiosity, humor, patience, tolerance, compassion, and courage.

Where do you live?

If you can think of time as place, you have the power to relocate.

Wherever in time you’ve been living, take a good look at the emotions you’ve collected, stored or treasured and evaluate their worth.  Do they help you create the life you want?  Manifest a specific intention?  Access more of your personal power?  Do your memories strengthen you or disable you?  Do your expectations empower you or immobilize you?

Every place in time has both costs and benefits.  It’s easy to criticize the past for its tendency to calcify the heart, or disparage the future for its capacity to shrivel the body.  It’s also easy to extol the present for the solid foundation it provides.  It’s harder to bless the past for lessons learned and memories accumulated, or embrace the future for the possibilities it holds.  It’s harder still to recognize the potential of the present to stagnate the mind.

The Past

While every event of your life holds a potential memory, you probably remember most clearly the events that carried an emotional impact.  The degree to which you live in a past event depends on its emotional hold.

Some events remain in your memory with a soft and gentle presence:  good memories, fun times, pleasant connections with the people involved.  Memories of this sort encourage you to move on.  Many even empower you.

Some events inspire you to learn and grow, to see yourself and the world more clearly, to stretch out into new directions.  Their influence may be that of helping you discern what works and what doesn’t.

Some events maintain such a strong emotional hold they anchor you to the past.  For their own survival, they require you to stay put, to feed and nurture them, to give them life.  If you were to move on, they would die.  When you agree to their terms, you take up residence in that emotional space.  You feel trapped in that time, by that energy.

The Future

Since we’re looking at time as space, consider how often and under what conditions you visit the future.

Are you so detached and indifferent to the future you rarely drop in for a visit?  Perhaps you trust the future to take care of itself, with little or no effort on your part.  Or perhaps you can’t be bothered, and you’d rather pick up the pieces resulting from your indifference than plan ahead.

The future might feel like the home of a good friend: fun, supportive, generous.  You like to hang out there because you learn, you get ideas, you see opportunities, and you return to the present enthused and empowered.

Or perhaps you’ve spent so much time in the future and invested so much energy in it, you live there.  The energy might be so anxious and fearful you feel you have to stay there to keep watch, to stay on guard, to prepare for the looming danger.  Or it might be so full of anticipation and expectation, you become ensnared by daydreams.  The beauty generated by your desire or your greed casts the present in such shadow you can’t abide even looking in the direction of now.

The Present

When you reside in the present, you can look back into the past, learning the lessons and enjoying the memories.  When you look forward to the future, you can plan, explore and create.  Since, you actually exist in the present, the tools and techniques of the present are easily at hand.   When compared to the worst of The Past or The Future, The Present may seem the ideal.

As with the other two wheres of time, however, the present has its challenges, mostly relative to the other two time frames.  For the present to have power, you must aggressively learn from the past, and you must confidently create the future.  Otherwise, the past becomes a fog (as with Alzheimer’s patients), and the future holds no opportunity.  It’s entirely possible to be so lost in the now, you sacrifice your personal power to it.

The Power of Time

No doubt you’ve heard the adage, “Time is money.”  This statement places a monetary value on time, sometimes down to the second.  How much time is worth becomes a question of how much money can be produced in a given amount of time.  Actually, time itself is not money, it merely provides money with urgency.

The same goes for power.  Time by itself is not power, but it provides a way to think about power.  Unlike money, there is no tangible way to measure power, especially personal power.  With the Modes of Power diamond, I conceived one way to define power in terms of emotions.  I assigned Victim Mode a power level of 1, Interpreter Mode a power level of 100, Observer Mode a power level of 10,000, Partner Mode a power level of 1,000,000, and Creator Mode a power level of 100,000,000.  This is an arbitrary scale.  The numbers are for illustration only, and even the emotions I’ve assigned to the different modes will a) have different amounts of power within the mode, and b) sometimes move from mode to mode, depending on your definition or experience with them.

Very clearly, however, the Modes of Power diamond shows the power transitions from misery to struggle, to calm, to cooperation, to oneness.

So what does time have to do with this?  In terms of how we measure time, not much.  In terms of how we experience time, everything.

A period of time in which we experience no emotion has no power whatsoever.  If you can reach a place totally free of emotion, say in meditation, you can stop time.  By contrast, when your emotions are generating high levels of energy, time speeds up.  The rate at which time elapses is relative to the energy levels of your emotions.

The same is true for how much you reside in a where of time.  The stronger your emotional connection to some event, the stronger your ties to that event will be.  If the emotion is very strong and exerts a strong pull on you, you will return so frequently to the when of the event it might become your where. On the hand, when an event generates only fleeting emotions, the event itself flows easily through your life .

If you have strong emotional ties to a past event, you must heal the emotions in order to relocate your soul to a different where of time.  Strong emotional ties to something you anticipate in the future can likewise fix you in time.  Your emotions can bind you to your expectations and close off all other possibilities.

Time as a Function of Power

Time provides you with two extremely important aspects of personal power, the power to heal and the power to create.  See Pacify Your Objections for exercises to heal the past and create the future.

In Your Path to Power, I suggested three ways people access their personal power – through the mind, through the body, or through the heart.

Each way of accessing power connects with time in a different way.  People who access power through the heart have a direct connection to the past.  They have strong healing energy, and in order to create in the present, they need to heal any injuries incurred in the past.  Once healing is achieved, creation comes easily.

People who access power through the body have a direct connection to the future.  They have strong creative energy, and when that energy is projected into the future, miracles result.  In order to create in the present, they need to visualize the future in the widest possible view of possibilities.  Once creation has begun, healing follows easily.

People who access their power through the mind have a direct connection to the present, because all choices originate in the mind, and choices can only be made in the present.  They need to choose in the present before they can either heal the past and or create the future.

Where to Begin

Clearly, everyone is better off if they live in the present, since choice is only possible in the now. However, coming to now is the starting point only if you access your power through the mind.  If you are a mind-power person, you may find settling into the now is merely a matter of choice.  You decide to move from Interpreter mode and relocate in Observer or Partner mode, and there you are.

Coming to now if you are a heart-power person may require some dedicated effort to heal the past (often called recapitulation).  You can revisit past experiences and revise them by rewriting and reenacting.  Or you can identify the emotions you’ve been carrying around since the event occurred, release those emotions and fill the vacuum with different energy.  Either way, healing occurs when you let go of the Victim or Interpreter energy and replace them with Observer or Partner energy. From Observer perspective, your possibilities expand and you can begin to create.

Reclaiming now if you are a body-power person requires recalling every vestige of Interpreter energy you’ve projected into the future.  Be very clear that what you’ve sent into the future will deliver back to you in kind.  If you project any form of fear (dread, anxiety, apprehension, worry) into the future, the future will deliver back some manifestation of what you fear.  If you project any form of avarice (greed, hunger, ambition, pride, lust) into the future, the future may return some form of what you desire, but it won’t fill the emptiness that motivated the desire in the first place.  When you step out of Interpreter Mode into Observer or Partner Mode, you free yourself of the energy needs of fear or conquest.  You become calm, and calm illuminates a vast array of possibilities.  Healing becomes one of the possibilities you see; a possibility that can easily become reality.

Live in the present.  Use the past to heal and the future to create.  All three aspects of time are key to accessing your power and manifesting your best good.


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Wholeness and Enlightenment

April 29th, 2012

Several months ago, I posted an article titled What’s True for You.  I presented ways you could identify what’s true for you or not true.  Basically, the pursuit of something that’s not true for you is usually motivated by Interpreter Mode emotions.  Since Interpreter Mode results in struggle, if you are experiencing struggle, you are in some way out of alignment with your own truth.

Today I’m going to expand on that theme, focusing more on what is true for you.

Imagine a circle divided into three wedges.  Imagine the wedges represent your thoughts, actions and emotions, and the circle represents your wholeness.  When the wedges are intact and united, the circle is complete and you are congruent.  This congruent circle represents your wholeness.  When you are congruent, you are complete.  You are also  the captain of your soul and connected to the infinite.

While I designated the three aspects of wholeness as thoughts, actions and emotions, they can as easily be called:

  • Empowerment: Using the infinite power within you.
  • Mastery: Mastering yourself, your purpose and your intentions.
  • Enlightenment: Listening to the truth of your heart.

Today, I’m focusing on enlightenment.  Only by listening to the truth of your own heart can you be true to yourself, and only by mastering yourself and your purpose can you access the infinity of your inner power.

Enlightenment

I first heard the term “enlightenment,” in high school in reference to The Age of Enlightenment, a period during the eighteenth century when Western philosophy focused on reason as the stronger legitimacy for authority than inheritance.  Seemed pretty enlightened to me.

When I began to hear the term used in connection with spirituality, my sense of it grew foggier.  It seemed to mean an esoteric connectedness, achieved only by a few and only through intense meditation and after years of practice.  I puzzled over that one for years.  It seemed to deny the enlightenment that comes through the process of gaining wisdom.

When you consider listening to the truth of your heart, do dozens of questions arise for you, such as:  How do I listen?  How do I distinguish my voice from all the other voices in my head?  How do I know if what I’m hearing is true?  What exactly am I supposed to listen for?  Do your questions continue to pile on from here?

The following factors may help sort through the mix and find more of what’s true for you.

Your Values System

Many religious apologists claim moral and ethical behaviors derive from a belief in a deity.  Most atheists and agnostics who live according to a moral or ethical code, claim morality produces better results than immorality, so a values system is simply logical.

Whether you acquired your moral sense from the teachings of your church or from an observance of cause and effect, the results are generally the same:  some behaviors and qualities of character work better in society and inspire you to better choices; some create conflict in society and lead to personal chaos.

All human beings are strong in some areas and weak in others, and your true values system will not include every trait or quality someone at some time has considered a virtue.

If you find a certain quality to have value yet believe you do not currently possess it, you have the power to choose it.  Decide firmly that it is something you want to incorporate into your life, and visualize what it represents to you.  Say, for instance, you want flexibility.  What would more flexibility bring into your life?  Less stress?  More peace?  More room to maneuver?  Focus on the results of flexibility – the peace, the room, the freedom, the lightness.  Feel  those qualities in your meditations and practice them in your life until they become a done deal.

Similarly, if a certain quality is not true for you, or if you are not aligned with it, you will experience confusion and self-doubt.  You have the power to un-choose it, to stop trying to force fit it into your life, and thus see yourself and your true values more clearly.

When something is true for you, and you are aligned with it, it will enhance and empower your life.  Your task, then, is to become more aware of what is true for you and become more attuned to it.

I encourage you to make a list of the qualities or virtues you believe you possess  – or would like to adopt.  Journal about each one and what it adds to your life.  Observe the emotions that flow within you as you write about each one.  Any that are not true for you will probably evoke emotions of judgment and struggle.  Those true for you will likely evoke Partner or Creator emotions.

Your Intuition

You have an inner voice that speaks truth to you.  It’s been called many names at various times including, your conscience, the holy spirit, your spirit guides, an angel, your spirit animal, the ancestors, the still small voice, etc.

This voice obeys several rules in its communication with you, including

  • It responds to and with whatever energy you’re emitting.
  • It speaks in the language you use.  Your spoken language, of course, but also the language of your thoughts.  It uses your metaphors, your analogies, and your symbolism.
  • It works from within your worldview.  If your worldview is narrow and specific, so is your inner voice.  If your worldview is curious and expansive, so is your inner voice.
  • It is limited or not-limited by your sense of your own self.  The truer you are to yourself, the truer the messages you receive from your inner voice.  If you are confused, conflicted, or specifically focused, your inner voice must speak from wherever you are at a given moment.

Let’s consider each of these rules.

First, your energy.  When your energy is positive, you open a clear channel and the messages come through without interference.  Negative energy acts like static, interrupting and distorting the messages, sometimes making it difficult for you to discern them, sometimes obscuring them completely.

Second, your language.  Sometimes you may hear your inner voice as an actual voice speaking verbal words.  More often, you will get an idea, or feel the need for caution, or know it’s time to act, or just know one choice is better than another.  Sometimes your inner voice uses something you’re already focusing you attention upon to give you a message to yourself.  Your work or your avocation may be the metaphorical structure for the lessons of your life.

Third, your worldview.  Your inner voice wants to speak to you in expansive ways, to encourage partnership and creativity.  The less you judge the world, the more you release your intuition to speak truth to you.

Fourth, your self.  You intuition can communicate only within the scope of how well you know yourself and how much you trust yourself.  The truer you are to yourself, the better you know yourself, and the more open you are to knowledge and growth, the more straightforwardly your inner voice will be able to speak to you.

If there is an area of your life where you don’t fully trust your own judgment, I encourage you to choose to become more attuned to your inner voice in that area.  Practice pausing to listen before any decision.  Stop.  Become calm (see Clarify Your Intention).  Review the possibilities as you know them.  Listen to your inner voice.  Proceed without haste.  At first you may not recognize the difference between instinct and impulse, so simply watch what happens.  You will begin to notice when your instinct speaks truly, and as you trust it, it will speak more often.

Your Desires

Your true desires are not only within your reach, they want you as much as you want them.

Here are some of the ways you can differentiate a true desire from one that is not:

  • A true desire will not have a “should” attached to it.
  • A true desire comes from your heart.
  • You already have the talents (if not the skills) to achieve a true desire.
  • The universe is always your ready partner when you pursue a true desire.

A true desire is not necessarily easy. It might be damn challenging.  Pursuing a true desire with your whole heart will always bring rewards greater than you imagined when you began.  You might not get exactly what you thought you wanted, but whatever you achieve will exceed your wildest imagination.   (See Expand Your Possibilities.)

Your Service

Some forms of service are well-marked as “service,” such as volunteer work, donations to non-profit organizations, ministering to the poor, and anything identified as charity.  Other kinds of service are much less noted, but of equal value:  spreading good cheer through a smile or a touch, laughing together, staying connected, showing respect and appreciation, receiving gracefully, extending unconditional acceptance, etc.  By these actions and attitudes, you raise the energy level of wherever you are, of whatever you are doing.  When you lift someone’s spirits, their energy expands, and together you send more goodness into the world than either one of you could alone.  This expansion of good energy becomes exponential, as each person carries it from the starting place to the next person, the next activity.

In this way, being the truest person you can be becomes the greatest service you can give.  Being true to yourself expands you energetically, and as your energy expands, your goodness reaches more people.  Your goodness embraces people with love, which frees their good energy.  Good energy always has more power than negative energy, so in this way you expand peace and love in the world.  In this way, you serve yourself, your neighbors, your community, your country, and the world itself.

You can of course, continue your forms of traditional service, donating money, volunteering, and ministering to those in need, especially if they are true for you.  To multiply the service you provide with your hands and your wallet, bring your good energy, your joy, and your love into the doing and the giving.

These are a few of the ways you can listen to the truth of your heart and bring your emotions into congruence with your thoughts and actions.  I believe enlightenment follows congruence.

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Your Path to Power

April 1st, 2012

Some years ago, I read an essay by a Tibetan lama who presented a list of benefits of meditation.  I found myself in agreement with him up until he claimed meditation was the only way to achieve those benefits.  Since I enjoyed most of the benefits cited, yet had never practiced meditation as he described it, I examined my approach.  What route had I taken?

My answer:  through reason.  For years I had been thinking things through, logically differentiating what worked from what didn’t, and consciously choosing what worked.  I concluded that both reason and meditation have the potential to accomplish the same result.  In my coaching, I would encourage some clients to meditate, and I would encourage some clients to ponder.  Then I had a client, a musician, who rebelled against both.  He’d say, “I just have to practice!”

His claim gave me more to think about, and I soon added practice as the third path to wisdom and personal power.  I began to see these ways as via the heart (meditation), as via the mind (reason), and as via the body (practice).  As I explored the implications and possibilities of this idea, the concept kept expanding and touching more and more areas of the manifestation process.

In today’s blog, I’ll suggest some ways you can determine your way.  Please recognize this is a work in progress, and it’s still in a relatively raw state.  (I happily welcome comments, questions, observations, and hearing of the results you get when you apply any of these ideas.  The more we test the ideas the more we’ll learn.)

Congruence

Even as you’re recognizing your way of accessing your personal power,  keep in mind the importance of uniting mind, heart and body.  If you think your way is through the mind, this means only that you connect/approach/ignite/access your power most easily by way of the mind.  Once you tap into your power via the mind, your body and heart easily absorb that power and participate in it.

Likewise for accessing power by mind or heart.  The access comes via your particular means then encompasses the whole.

Your power is a giant, infinite expanse, with no limits and no barriers.  As a human being, you have recognizable aspects of body (your reference point for action and physical experiences), mind (your reference point for thoughts and mental experiences) and heart (your reference point for emotions and psychological experiences).  When these three aspects of you are united, aligned and congruent, you feel “whole.”

One of these aspects of your wholeness provides the best gateway to your power.  If your access is the mind, when you master your thoughts, reason, logic, etc., you throw wide the gate.  If your access is the heart, mastering your feelings, emotions, focus, etc. , opens the gate.  If your access is the body, you throw wide the gate by mastering your physicality, senses, imagination, etc.

Once you accept your power, it flows smoothly and quickly throughout, and you experience a sense of wholeness.  When you gain an understanding of your way – the portal through which you most effectively access your power –  you acquire a key to your wholeness.  Wholeness expands into enlightenment, which governs and multiplies your power.

Observe Yourself

So how do you know which is your way?  The best answer I have is by intuition.  You know yourself better than anyone else.  You are the only one who can truly hear the promptings and messages of your feelings, your thoughts, your behaviors, and the events of your life.

However, here are four observations you can make as you sort through the evidence.  In each example, choose a), b) or c).

1.    Image you are in a speed dating session.  A group of twenty people forms two concentric circles, men and women facing each other.  At seven minute intervals, the circles will progress in opposite directions, so you face someone new of the opposite sex.  In seven minutes of conversation, you will decide “yes” or “no,” then move on.

Of course, the first “yes” or “no” is likely to be physical – age, looks, grooming, style, etc. – and probably takes place before the first word is spoken.  Then the hard part begins.  The questions you exchange might be about family, achievements, life experiences, preferences, but at the core of each question will be the quest for:

a)         Common knowledge and shared interests.

b)        Common sympathies and shared attitudes toward the world.

c)         Common activities and shared appreciations.

2.    Imagine you are at the top of a hill, enjoying nature.  You observe the beauty, feel the power, and recognize the components.  Are you:

a)  More curious about the world itself, the flora and fauna, the names of things and their structure, the indications of weather and climate.

b)  More speechless with awe and wonder, more conscious of the infinite.

c)             More fascinated by your sensory perceptions, the sounds, smells, colors and shadows, more aware of distances and perspectives.

3.         Imagine yourself deep into the manifestation process.  You’ve identified an intention; you’ve clarified it so you know exactly what you mean and why; you’ve purified it of fears, doubts and expectations; you’ve pacified your objections; and you’ve expanded your possibilities.  Now you’re ready to intensify your focus.  Which of the following resonates more strongly?

a)         Giving your intention more attention through affirmations and visualizations.

b)        Becoming tranquil and letting the peace of your intention fill your body?

c)         Becoming more cooperative with your intention through gratitude and willingness.

4.  Imagine three different strengths:

a)         The ability to choose

b)        The ability to focus

c)         The ability to implement.

In life, these strengths may seem like steps to achievement:  first, choose what you want to do, then give it your attention, then take action.  However, these “steps” are actually different approaches, and one will feel more natural to you than the other two.  In manifestation, when you start with the one that fits you best, the other two will follow easily.

Recognizing

Each of the above examples indicates a different approach to life and to personal power.  Consider these as possible indicators when you contemplate your own way.

a)     Through the mind:  Philosophy and knowledge are top priorities; you are curious about the world, how it all fits together, and the way one thing influences another; you are most likely to intensify an intention through increased mental attention; you choose easily.

b)    Through the heart:  The well-being of others and your world are top priorities; you are curious about the infinite; you are most likely to intensify an intention through tranquility and letting peace fill your body; you focus easily.

c)    Through the body:  Beauty and perception are top priorities; you are curious about things you can’t perceive through your senses; you are most likely to intensify an intention by becoming more cooperative with your tools, your talents, your body and your energy; you implement easily.

I have observed that people choose different walks of life depending on their innate way of accessing their personal power.  Healers, communicators and managers tend to access their power by way of the heart.  Artists, athletes and artisans tend to access their power by way of the body.  And scientists, philosophers and teachers tend to access their power by way of the mind.

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Expand Your Possibilities

March 25th, 2012

As you will recall from the Diamond of Mastery diagram, Observer Mode spans the waistline of the diamond, where it’s widest, where the possibilities are broadest.  This wealth of possibilities is the most important aspect of Observer Mode.  Observer Mode emotions produce calm, and only in calmness do possibilities become visible.

In this infinite universe, an infinite array of possibilities always exists.  (Imagine the wide part of the diamond as greater than your arm span rather than narrower than the paper.)  When you look around objectively you can observe myriad results:  people in all states of physical well-being, from deathly ill to vibrantly healthy; people in all states of abundance, from abject poverty to wealth in the mega-billions; people in all states of mental well-being, from despair to bliss; people in all states of service, from saving lives to rejecting others.  Whatever you want, you’ll find examples of people at both ends of the spectrum and everything in between.

Of course, someone caught in Victim Mode – at the bottom tip of the diamond – sees no options, no alternatives, only more of the same.  Someone who has advanced to Interpreter Mode can see a much wider range of options, but those options will all be cloaked in difficulty because Interpreter mode emotions produce struggle.

The move from Interpreter Mode into Observer Mode is like stepping from darkness into light.  Suddenly you have greater depth perception, details are clearer, peripheral vision expands, colors are sharper.  Suddenly you see a greatly expanded range of possibilities.

The key to this change is calm. Calmness of thought, calmness of emotion, calmness of action.  I like to think of this as the triumvirate of mind, heart and body.  These three aspects of self work together to produce results.  When they are unified, they generate whatever they are aligned with; when they are in conflict, they generate chaos.

Because thoughts, emotions and actions are so connected and interdependent, it’s possible to begin with any one of them to achieve calm.  In other posts, I’ve focused almost entirely on emotions, so let’s start there.

Calm Your Emotions

You can use any of the techniques I’ve suggested before to calm your emotions.  Here are four more:

  • Smile.  Using MRI, researchers have discovered that turning up the corners of the mouth changes the way the synapses in the brain fire.  Just by smiling, you move your brain activity to a happier location of the brain.
  • See beauty.  Notice something you believe to be beautiful and savor it.  Seeing beauty is like seeing truth, except on the emotional level.  Enjoying the beautiful will ease your heart away from any agitation and cool heated emotions.
  • Be silly.  Stick out your tongue, wiggle your butt, dance a jig, cross your eyes – let down your defenses.  To be silly for even a few moments will helps you transcend any tension-causing rules that bind you to beliefs and behaviors that may not be true for you.
  • Evoke a neutral emotion.  Basically, this is letting go of judgment and becoming the observer.  That transition moves you from stress to serenity

When you calm your heart, you also calm your body and your mind.

Calm Your Body

Releasing stress and tension from your body is often the preferred starting place, probably because physical tension is so easy to identify.  Chances are, if you took a quick inventory of your body right now you’d find tension somewhere; and chances are equally high your mind immediately comes up with a relaxation technique:  get a massage, exercise, practice yoga, have an acupuncture treatment, take an aspirin, stretch, go for a walk, meditate.  These are all effective methods for tension relief.  Here are additional ways to quiet your body.

  • Breathe deeply.  Inhale slowly into your diaphragm, paying attention to the air all the way in and all the way out.  Be with your body.  Repeat 4-6 times.  The body relaxes with such regulated and increased oxygenation.
  • Open your senses.  Pay attention to what you can hear, what you can see, what you can smell, what you can taste, and/or what you can feel.  Your senses are your access to the world, and compared to your own stress, the world is very stable.
  • Be in nature.  Go outside and be open to temperature, weather, plants, animals, and your body’s responses.  Nature is generous, inspiring, settling and calming.
  • Open up your body from within.  Become tall, lengthen your neck, broaden your shoulders, expand your rib cage, lengthen your arms and legs, stretch your skin.  When your body is tight, it hoards tense emotions; when your body is expanded, it welcomes generous emotions.

When you calm your body, you also calm your heart and your mind.

Calm Your Mind

Buddhism refers to mental anxiety as “monkey mind.”  Sometimes when the mind is particularly agitated, you may reach calm fastest through the body or the emotions.  However, the following suggestions can help you calm your mind first.

  • Count your blessings.  Think of five things you’re thankful for and savor them.  Especially be mindful of the blessings and advantages you enjoy that you didn’t earn.  Appreciation of what’s good switches the mind off something you might be judging negatively.
  • Laugh out loud.  Chuckle, giggle, tee-hee.  Generate it from your belly, your chest, your throat, your nose, your toes.  Just find some form of laughter inside of you and let it come out your mouth.  Laughter is a very effective medicine.
  • See truth.  Think of something you know to be true.  Even small truths work well here:  The sun is shining (or it’s raining); I love my dog (or my child, or my spouse), I am well-fed (or hungry), I like ice cream (or swimming, or a good book, or martinis).  Truth will help you stop any story your mind might be spinning.
  • Be present.  Take note of whatever you are doing.  If you are eating, savor every bite; if you are working, focus on the task; if you are walking, observe the roll of your feet, the resilience of the ground, the sounds and textures of the environment.  Focus your mind on what is, and you will find ease from whatever story your brain is making up.

When you calm your mind, you also calm your heart and your body.

Calm = Possibilities

Okay, now that you’re calm, let’s explore what’s possible.

At the center top of a piece of paper, briefly identify something you want to create.  I’ve used the following example in previous blogs:

With delight and gratitude I enjoy unrestrained financial abundance.

Immediately below your intention, write the first result that comes to mind.  Perhaps the first result of financial abundance would be, I’m totally out of debt. Below that, imagine two new possibilities that would derive from the first, moving in two different directions:  One way:  I have money to spare. The other way:  I have money to share. Now let each of those options move in two more directions, so you have branched into four further possibilities:  1) My business is prospering beyond by wildest dreams. 2) Money comes when I need it. 3) My prosperity prospers others. 4) I help those I love to my heart’s content.

From here, let the ideas come from wherever they will, even if they don’t logically progress from earlier ideas.  Let your intuition guide you.  Give you imagination free rein.  Expand your possibilities in one direction today, and expand them in another direction tomorrow.  No buts.  No boundaries.  No rules.  No limitations.

Keep ‘em Coming

Just as there is an infinite expanse of possibilities out there waiting to be noticed, you have an infinite creative potential for conceiving, receiving, exploring, and discovering.  Your subconscious mind loves to come up with ideas.  Unfortunately, most people find it easier to shut down their creativity than encourage it.  Perhaps you’ve developed the habit of saying, “Whoa!”  “Not now!”  “Not yet!”  No way!”  “Can’t do it.”  Here’s a good way to reverse that practice.

Keep a notebook called “My Idea Log.”  Write your Intention Statement at the top of one of the pages.  (Perhaps you are working with many intentions, so each one will have a page – or a section – in your notebook.)  Whenever you have an idea related to your intention, write it in the log.  This will be a running brainstorming session, and the same rules apply:  Everything gets written down.  No judging.  No discussion.  No cross talk.  No sorting or organizing.  Allow repetition.  Encourage the far-out.  Write down everything that comes to mind.

Perhaps most of the things you write down will be about how, at least at first.  Writing them in the Idea Log serves the following purposes:

  1. You signal your subconscious that you’re listening, and this encourages more and more ideas.
  2. By noting your how ideas on paper, yet staying intentionally focused on the what, you strengthen your partnership with the universe.  In essences you affirm your understanding that what is up to you, and you trust the universe to handle how.
  3. When it comes time for you to take action, you’ll have an amazing source of ideas already at hand.

Remember, the possibilities are without end.  The calmer you are, the more vividly you will see an ever-expanding range of options – most of which are already sitting right under your nose.


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Posted in Calmness, Interpreter Mode, Neutrality, Observer Mode, Possibilities, Victim Mode, manifestation | 2 Comments »

Pacifying Your Objections

March 17th, 2012

When I first realized the power of emotions, I thought of them as prayers.  (Or wishes, or desires, or intentions, or choices.)  I saw happiness as a prayer for more happiness, and misery as a prayer for more misery.  Then I began to also see thoughts as prayers and actions as prayers.  For the past fifteen years, my observations have affirmed and expanded that original idea, and I have come to see the power of combining these three energies into a congruent whole

Congruence Produces Results

When thoughts, actions and emotions are joined toward something, that something becomes reality  This is true whether the result is something you want or something you don’t want.

For most people, most of the time, results occur more by accident than by intention.  For instance, you probably have no intention to catch the cold bug that happens to be going around.  But if you have the thought/belief that illnesses are passed by germs, the emotion/acceptance that you’re vulnerable, and an action/contact with those germs, you’ll be congruent about catching cold.  You can easily catch it by accident.

The recognition of congruence is easy when what you have is what you like, enjoy, delight in, appreciate, love, or are at peace with.  It’s much more difficult to acknowledge a potential alignment with the troubling aspects of life – conflicts, illnesses, hardships, frustrations, lacks, etc.

When you look at what you don’t like in your life, perhaps you experience dislike, frustration, impatience, grief, fear, anger, or some other emotions from Victim or Interpreter mode.  It’s natural to wonder how you can possibly be aligned with something you so passionately don’t want.  It isn’t necessary to dissect or analyze the experiences of your past for the answer.  Simply look at your results and the energy that produces those results.  Are you suffering?  The energy of Victim Mode emotions produces suffering.  Are you struggling?  The energy of Interpreter Mode emotions produces struggle.

Remember, all emotions have power.  All thoughts have power.  And all actions have power.  Everything in your life indicates these three powers are pulling together in the same direction – or in conflict with each other.  If you change any one of the three, you will get a different result.

Today we’re going to do a little time traveling in order to de-energize what you don’t want – and energize what you do want.

In my previous blog (Becoming Congruent), I suggested a “But” exercise.  From that exercise, you’ll notice past experiences tend to be at the heart of many of your buts. Not all, of course.  Some will have to do with your current circumstances, and a few will reach into the future.  Take a moment to review your list and mark which is which.  Mark those rooted in the past with P, those centered in the present with C (for Current), and those projecting into the future with F.

To illustrate, here’s the sample intention I used last week.  I labeled long-held beliefs with P because such beliefs tend to have such deep roots into the past.

With delight and gratitude I enjoy unrestrained financial abundance, but:

  • I’m stuck in a job that barely pays the bills. (C)
  • Every time I try to feel abundance my stomach tightens up. (C)
  • The economy’s so bad, where would any new money come from? (F)
  • I’m farther in the hole than I’ve ever been before. (C)
  • Money is the root of all evil. (P)
  • The rich only get that way on the backs of the poor. (P)
  • I have to make sure everyone else is okay first. (P)

Change the Past

In science fiction, one of the primary challenges of time travel is to not interfere with history.  One little change in the past could completely obliterate the present as you know it.  For instance, what would happen to you if one set of your great-great grandparents didn’t conceive your great grandparent?  Or what would your childhood have been like if your father did different work?  Or what would your current situation be if you’d gone to a different school?

Look at your but list and choose one of those you marked with a P.  What if one little thing had been different in the past?  Would that but have the same power?

To change the past in a positive way, you will travel back in time and “rewrite” the event that originated the but, or influenced it, or reinforced it.  While there may be no mechanism to travel through time physically, metaphysically you can revisit your past and powerfully re-create your current reality.

Here’s one of the buts from the above list:  But I have to make sure everyone else is okay first.

Beliefs such as this may have resulted from a single event, but more likely they take shape through repetition.  The seed may have been planted when you were forced to share your toys, nurtured at functions (including your own birthday parties) where guests were served first, cultivated when you were instructed to watch out for your little brothers and sisters, etc. until you came to believe other people’s needs take precedence over your own.

Using the but you selected from your own list, travel back in time to a situation from the past that reinforced your belief.  It doesn’t matter if the situation actually happened or is simply representative.  It does matter that you can re-experience the feelings of the situation.  Also, the more meditative and experiential you can become, the better.  You’ll be moving through the situation emotionally, and you’ll control the clock so you can stop the action at any time.

Begin by letting your memory travel back to the situation you have in mind.  Imagine yourself at the beginning of the scene, when your emotions were in the neutral-to-happy range.  Say you’re happily playing by yourself with your toys when another child arrives.  Or you’ve just finished blowing out the candles on your cake and it’s time to serve it to your guests.  Or you’ve been left in charge of your cute little sister.

Now let the scene unfold until the moment when your needs or wants get pushed into the back seat.  Stop the clock.  Recognize this a choice point for you.

Of course, back in the past you couldn’t know you had a choice.  You were young, you were still forming your world view, you were vulnerable.  You couldn’t orchestrate the situation to please yourself.  (Violators will be prosecuted!)  Yet you felt something.

Start the clock and move through the scene just long enough to recognize what you felt then:  angry, frustrated, guilty, belittled, miserable, resentful, helpless, bitter, defensive, ashamed?  Stop the clock again.

With the clock stopped, acknowledge your emotion as one from Victim or Interpreter Mode.  From your current wisdom you know Victim Mode emotions result in pain and suffering; Interpreter Mode emotions result in struggle.  The emotion you experienced then has been affecting your life ever since.  So, since you’re traveling back in time, now’s your chance to change the past.  And since you’ve stopped the clock and can pause it for as long as you want, take the time to decide how you would like to react instead.  Emotions from Observer Mode will neutralize the old belief, Partner emotions will generate new opportunities, and Creator emotions will produce best good.

When you know the emotion you want to experience instead, choose it.  Generate it within you.  Feel it.  Let this be the mode you operate from.  Now start the clock again.

As you let the scene continue, the other players will try to follow the old script.  But when you use your chosen emotion to motivate new dialogue and responses, they will have to follow your lead and adapt to your new choices.  Pay attention to what happens within yourself as the scene plays out.  Notice any shifts that occur.

In science fiction, any changes to the past usually occur within the characters, with no permanent changes to history.  (Except they may have fixed something that had broken.)  When the characters return to their present, it’s often to the present they knew before, but they themselves have gained a measure of enlightenment.  In your reality, you will probably experience a similar inner transformation, and that inner transformation will impact your current circumstances.  You will have changed the past in one small way, and that change will also change the present.

Choose the Present

For this technique, return to your but list and select an item you identified with an C for Current:  But I’m farther in the hole than I’ve ever been before. Compared to changing the past, choosing the present is fairly straightforward, although it requires the same meditative and experiential attention.

  1. Identify the emotion(s) most entangled with this very present but.  For instance, my example may generate insecurity.  (Ah, I’m feeling insecure.)
  2. Recognize the creative power of the emotion you’ve been experiencing.  (Insecurity about money makes me feel sick to my stomach.)
  3. Acknowledge your power to choose your emotions.  (Oh my, I’ve been choosing to feel insecure.)
  4. Decide what you’d rather feel, what would be an antidote for insecurity.  (Hope.  I want to feel hopeful.)
  5. Relax into what you want to feel instead.  This step requires conscious willingness to replace the old habitual emotion with the new intentional emotions.
  6. Choose to operate from that new space.

When you replace insecurity with hope you move from Interpreter Mode to Observer Mode, and you will experience calm.  If you choose a Partner Mode emotion, such as gratitude or eagerness or tranquility, new and unexpected opportunities will open up for you.  If you choose a Creator emotion such as delight or peace or optimism, your best good will unfold.

Connect with the Future.

You already travel into the future to create the present.  When your time machine is powered by Partner or Creator emotions, your visits empower your congruence with all that you enjoy and appreciate in your life.  When your time machine is powered by Victim or Interpreter emotions, you strengthen your congruence with those things you passionately dislike.

This technique will help you become more intentional about using the future to become more congruent with what you do want.

Most likely, when you look at the but statements you’ve labeled with an (F) for Future, you’ll find fear or worry.  In my example:  The economy’s so bad, where would any new money come from? Embedded in this are the Interpreter emotions of self-doubt, trepidation, worry, anxiety, and also a bit of helplessness from the anger and woe of Victim.

Such emotions make the future look dark and dismal, and if you draw such fear from the future into the present, the present becomes dark and dismal.  Even if today is bright and sunny and you have money in the bank and work scheduled on the books, you may find it impossible to enjoy any security in the now.  In other words, you’re using the future to create the present.

Imagine the time continuum between the present and the future as an assembly line belt.  The belt runs continuously, forward from you into the future and from the future back to you.  The now-emotion you put on the belt scrolls into the future, and the future scrolls the result back to you now.  Because this is a continuously running loop, the emotion you put on the belt determines your future and your present.

To try this, select one of your (F) but statements:  The economy’s so bad, where would any new money come from?

Review your intention statement.  Perhaps you’ve already selected an emotion or two to energize this intention:  With delight and gratitude I enjoy unrestrained financial abundance.

Generate the emotions of delight and gratitude within you.  Let the energy of them circulate through your body. Feel them.  Be them.  Let them expand within you and radiate from you.  Put them on the conveyor belt and send them into the future.

Now, receive what the future puts on the conveyor belt and returns to you.

Congruence is Power

There is no one way to become congruent, to align with what you want.  Sometimes it’s a process of dismantling or deconstructing.  Sometimes it requires release or surrender.  Sometimes all you have to do is become willing and welcoming.  Sometimes it involves practice or assembly.  Regardless of the ways or means of becoming aligned, when your thoughts, actions and emotions form a single, congruent prayer in unity with what you want, what you want must result.  And the results are often immediate.  When those three aspects of your power click together into a congruent whole, the miracle happens.  (The final result may take a little time.  You probably won’t loose those 20 pounds instantly.)

If the miracle hasn’t happened yet, stay mindful of your congruence.

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Posted in Choice, Congruence, Making Miracles, intentions, manifestation, personal power | 2 Comments »

Becoming Congruent

February 26th, 2012

As sentient beings, we approach everything from three directions at once.  We view them through our emotions, we think about them, and we act – not necessarily in that order.

Our best results come when these three tactics work in harmony with each other, when we’re congruent.  In fact, you can recognize the areas of your life where you are congruent by looking at your results.  If you’re getting what you want, you’re in alignment.  If you’re not getting what you want, one of these forces doesn’t mesh with the other two.

Alignment begins by making sure what you want is true for you and that you can be true to it.  Your congruence with what you want is the first step of alignment, but sometimes being true to what you want can be challenging.  Even when it feels true and you know it comes from your heart, you’re beset by doubts or objections or experiences that deny the possibility of attainment.  Then it’s time to search out your impediments and remove them from your path.

Identify the Impurities

For a good way to I way to identify your obstacles and objections here’s something I call The “But” Exercise.

Write your intention at the top of a piece of paper.  For instance,

With delight and gratitude I enjoy unrestrained financial abundance.

Then turn your statement into a compound sentence with the word but, and finish with whatever fear, belief, or doubt comes up.  Since you probably have more than one fear or doubt, repeat this exercise with at least 10 different endings.

If you’ve been working with an intention statement on a daily basis, it’s very likely some objections have been intruding.  This is your chance to commit them to paper:

With delight and gratitude I enjoy unrestrained financial abundance,

  • But I’m stuck in a job that barely pays the bills.
  • But every time I try to feel abundance my stomach tightens up.
  • But the economy’s so bad, where would any new money come from.
  • But I’m farther in the hole than I’ve ever been before.
  • But money is the root of all evil.
  • But the rich only get that way on the backs of the poor.
  • But I have to make sure everyone else is okay first.

If you discover more than ten obstacles, keep going.  Perhaps you know your strongest doubt already, so it comes up first.  Continue anyway just to probe for anything else.  If you’re not sure what’s stopping you, this is a good way to release your subconscious.  Maybe you’ve got such an array of doubts you could find twenty without batting an eye.  However it is for you, this is the first step toward dissolving your objections and becoming completely congruent with your intention.

This exercise may take some time.  You may need to come back to it a couple of times.  Stay open and receptive.  You may discover some old beliefs embedded in your subconscious.  You may be able to articulate a persistent fear.  You may be confronted by an attitude or opinion that surprises you.  Write them all down.  If you resist your resistance, you give your obstacles permission to block you.

Now, with your list in hand, read through the buts and select the one you perceive to be the strongest.  Which one do you believe hinders you the most?

Dissolve the Obstacles

And now, dissolve the obstruction.  For clarity’s sake, I’m going to number the “steps,” although in practice they often overlap.

1.  Write your complete, compound statement on a fresh piece of paper (your original intention and the but you’ve decided to dissolve).

With delight and gratitude I enjoy unrestrained financial abundance, but the rich only get that way on the backs of the poor.

2.  Examine your statement for implications and connotations and take note of what you find.  There’s quite a lot embedded in this example, including disdain for the rich (and a reluctance to become one of them), fear of becoming manipulative and exploitive, and identification with the poor.  Your own statement may be equally loaded.

3.      Consider what you would like to believe instead.  Perhaps you already consciously accept something else, even while your subconscious holds onto an attitude or belief that clearly doesn’t serve you.  You might find it helpful to think of neutralizing the old belief.

  • I can be rich and loving at the same time.
  • Some of the richest people in the world are also the most generous.
  • Money is merely a form of energy, and all energy can be used for either good or bad.
  • Creative endeavors produce as much wealth (perhaps more) than exploitive endeavors.
  • While exploitation exaggerates the difference between rich and poor, cooperation benefits everyone.

4.      Work with your list to come up with a statement of belief that strongly replaces the old one:

I cooperate with and empower others in every way, and we all prosper.

5.      Envision this as true.  Feel it as true.  Let it expand within you until you can observe your supportive and prosperous relationships with everyone.  What emotions come up for you?  What emotions do you think would most actively create this?  Love?  Delight?  Enjoyment?  Gratitude?  Serenity?  Generosity?

Remember, all emotions are creative.  You create according to the emotions you experience and generate.  Whereas Victim emotions create pain and suffering and Interpreter emotions create struggle, Observer emotions create calm, Partner emotions create opportunity and Creator emotions connect with your best good.

If some latent Victim emotion continues to reside within you, no matter how illogical or convoluted, that emotion retains the power to block what you want.  However, it’s impossible for any Victim emotion to reside in the same space as any Creator emotion.  You can neutralize fear, hate, anger, jealousy, etc. with love, kindness, peace, joy, etc.  Always.

To eradicate Victim or Interpreter obstacles, identify an emotion one step up the chart and choose to feel it instead.  Then identify an emotions one step up from that and adopt that one.  Keep going until you can access one of the Partner or Creator emotions.  Then incorporate one or more of those emotions into this new statement.

I lovingly cooperate with others and generously empower them, and we all prosper.


6.    Now replace your original but with and to form a new compound statement.

With delight and gratitude I enjoy unrestrained financial abundance, and I lovingly cooperate with others and generously empower them, and we all prosper.

Align

Your new compound sentence may sound a bit cumbersome.  When you recognize the parts of your statement and their importance, you can abridge the statement while retaining the power of it.  Your statement encompasses the following:

1.    What you want. In the example I’m using, this is abundance.  Yours might be an improved relationship, greater health, a successful business, wholeness, making a living with your talent.

2.    Why you want it or the service you’ll provide. The example circumvents the belief that when some win others lose and focuses on win-win.  Your motives can be personal or broad.  If your own peace of mind is more important to you than world peace, focus on your own peace of mind.

3.    The emotion(s) you’ll use to create what you want.  In the example, the emotions are delight, gratitude and love.  Yours might be peace, enthusiasm, vigor, or anything from Partner or Creator mode.

By understanding these parts, you can sit with your intention without using any words at all:  imagine what you want, evoke the creative emotions, feel it as a done deal.   It’s impossible to know when or in what manner your intention will manifest, so relax and observe.

x

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Posted in Congruence, Creator Mode, Interpreter Mode, Observer Mode, Partner Mode, The Law of Attraction, Victim Mode, intentions, manifestation | 7 Comments »

Clarify Your Intention

February 19th, 2012

Consider the difference between willfulness and willingness.  Willfulness is filled with determination, urgency and control, and is an expression of force.  By contrast, willingness is filled with acceptance, partnership and welcome, and is an expression of power.  Personal power.

For an intention to have power, it must be true for you and you must be willing to be true to it.  The truth of an intention often becomes clearer as the intention itself becomes clearer.  As you understand an intention more fully, you often understand yourself more fully.  Greater understanding tends to strengthen your willingness to receive what you want.

I once worked with a client who wanted to manifest an intimate relationship.  She’d been alone for a while, and she had a busy, full life, and she’d decided she wanted a partner to share it with.

We spent most of the coaching session focusing on what that would look like to her and how it would feel, and then I asked, “If a fabulous guy knocked on your door tomorrow and said, ‘Here, I am,’ would you say, “Come right on in, I’m excited to have you become part of my life.”  My client look a moment or two to imagine it, then shook her head.  “No, I don’t think I would.”

When she looked truly at her heart she realized she wasn’t willing to change her life, even to accommodate a loving, intimate relationship.

Wanting What You Want

Manifestation is as easy as, “Ask and you shall receive.”  The missing element of that promise is:  “Unless you want something else more.”  Almost always, when you want something and can’t seem to make it happen, you’re resistant at some level.

Want can also mean not wanting: not wanting change, not wanting to take a risk, not wanting to look too deeply within, not wanting to be different, not wanting to challenge old beliefs, etc.

Fear of the unknown is probably the strongest form of resistance, and such fears are often so deeply buried they’re difficult to identify.  What if success changes the structure of your relationship?  What if you fail?  What if something takes more time or energy or resources than you bargained for.  What if you can’t even see around the first bend, let alone all the way to the finish line?

Following are some ways to strengthen your willingness to receive what you want.  They help you assess what pulls you in that direction.

Define Your Terms

In a previous blog, I invited you to create an intention statement.   Such statements don’t have to be specific or detailed.  You probably have a general sense of what the words you’ve chosen mean to you.  Or maybe you only sort of know what you mean.  Take a few minutes to dig into what the  words and phrases you’re using truly mean to you.  If you want to write a best-selling novel, what does “best-selling” mean to you?  If you want work that provides a good income, does “good income” mean a specific dollar figure or a level of comfort or a degree of security?  If you want greater inner peace, what does peace look like to you?

Do this with each part of your statement.  If you’ve referred to the way your intention will benefit others, what do you mean?  Perhaps you want to heal others.  Does that mean by laying on of hands or by helping them make healthier choices?  Perhaps you want to empower others.  What does their empowerment look like to you?  Perhaps you want to provide a good time through your music or your stories.  Does that mean you’re a catalyst for fun?  Pleasure?  Escape?  Laughter?

By clarifying what you mean, you strengthen your partnership with your subconscious and with the universe.  When you say/think/pray that word or phrase, there’s no ambiguity, it becomes a shorthand communication.  You know exactly what you mean.  You don’t have to remind yourself that “abundance” means a million dollars (or a steady flow of money or freedom from want, or confidence about money rather than fear).  The images of fulfillment follow naturally, and the clarity you have established provides an adhesive so that with repetition and focus your intention grows bigger and stronger.  As fulfillment expands within you, all the forces involved also focus and strengthen to bring about your best good according to your own definition.

Connect With Your Values

You have acquired your personal values system as a result of many influencing factors throughout your life.  Some of them came from the beliefs and practices of your family, some from your religious or spiritual training, and some from your culture and education.  For instance, from your family you may value thrift, order, togetherness, hard work, etc.  From your religion, you may value charity, obedience, compassion, etc.  From your education, you may value knowledge and challenge; from your culture, etiquette and respect.  Of course, from those same sources you may have realized you couldn’t adopt the values of others.  You may value freedom more than obedience, independence more than unity, creativity more than compliance, achievement more than good manners.

From among your assortment of values, identify those that support your desires.  The values you have adopted and live by reflect what’s true for you.  Therefore, if your intention is true for you, your values will support it.  Identify the principles and ideals that reflect and confirm your intention.

Say for instance you’ve decided to manifest financial abundance, and to you that means an income two or three times greater than you’re currently earning.  Say your parents held a strong value for hard work and believed money is honorable only if earned by the sweat of your brow.  But you want to write a book.  No manual labor involved.  You may not want to discard the value of hard work, but you may need to redefine it to mean steady, consistent focus.  Or you may realize you value curiosity and commitment more than hard work.  Take the time to identify these supportive values.

Understand Your Motives

Next consider your supportive motivations.  Why to you want what you want?  Do you want abundance for greater peace of mind? So you can travel?  So you can invest in an idea or a project?  So you can give it away to some worthy cause?  So you can describe yourself as rich?  For the power and status of it?

For the purposes of being true to your intention, all motives have the same power.  There are no “worthy” or “unworthy” motivations.  Only your commitment matters.  It is extremely important, however, that your motivations are true for you.  Do you want to earn a Ph.D. because you should, because it’s expected in your family?  Then the motivation is probably not yours, but theirs.  Or do you want the learning and the degree?

Listen to your heart.  What propels you from within to pursue the path you have chosen?

Create With Your Emotions

Finally, what are your supporting emotions?  You will have identified some or all of these emotions while setting your intention.  As you work with your intention statement, others will emerge.  Read your intention statement aloud, listen to it with your heart, and identify the emotions that arise.  Do you feel happy, peaceful, enthusiastic, jubilant, determined?  Write them down.  These emotions have creative power.

These three aspects of what’s true for you – values, motivations and emotions – will support, sustain, and nourish your manifestation effort.  Whenever you feel doubt or uncertainty, reconnect with these aspects of what your original intention means to you.

Make the Commitment

Now ask yourself this important questions:  What will I have to give up? Currently, you’re devoting your time and energy toward your reality as it is now.  Your intention will change the balance of your life in some way.  Will it require time you currently dedicate to something else?  Will it require you to refocus your energy?  Will it cost money?  Will it challenge your creativity?  With you have to break an old habit?  Will you have to give up a long-held belief?

When I was writing fiction (and not selling what I wrote), I realized I held a deep fear that my success would negatively impact my marriage.  If I had been asking these questions then, I would have answered:  I have to give up that fear.

Expand into Yourself

And a final point to consider:  Who will I be as a result? Currently, you see yourself as a person who does not have what you have stated you want.  If you change your thinking, your beliefs, your habit patterns, your focus, and/or your priorities, you will be someone who does have.  What differences do you imagine might occur?  If you give up fear (guilt, poverty, anger, depression, loneliness, frustration), who will you be?

Can you see yourself as healthy?  Happy?  Strong?  Confident?  In your power?  On purpose?  Whole?  Can you see yourself as the creator of your life?  Can you see yourself in partnership with the universe?  Take a moment and feel the power of having/being/doing.  Feel the truth of it.  Know it’s already within you, and your willingness will bring it into fullness.

Reinforcing Your Intention

Now that your intention is becoming clearer and stronger, I encourage you to work with your statement every day.  Use the emotions you’ve associated with this intention.  Let them expand within you.  Let the energy of them circulate through your body.  Repeat the words of your intention.  Visualize what you want as finished, complete, manifest, fulfilled.  Express your gratitude for it.  See yourself serving with this intention and through it.

The time you dedicate to this practice can be the same fifteen or twenty minutes every day, i.e. 3:30 p.m.  Or you can attach it to something you already do every day:  when you wake up but before you get up, just before you go to sleep, after breakfast, in the shower.  Or you can keep it in your head and heart throughout the day, repeating it often and frequently evoking the emotions by which you will manifest it.

Establish a “sacred” space around your practice, in that you do not profane it with fear, doubt, objections, ill-will toward anyone else, or self-judgment.  Reverence this time as your communion with your soul, with your intention, with those you want to serve, and with the universe.  However, in the beginning, if doubts and objections should arise, keep a piece of paper or a notebook handy and jot them down.  Observing and naming any resistance will acknowledge to your subconscious that you’re paying attention.  Keeping a log will allow you to focus on the intention rather than the potential problems.

As you continue through this process, this sacred space will become more and more important to you, and you will find your practice becoming increasingly powerful.

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Posted in Beliefs, Choice, Clarity, Making Miracles, Willingness, intentions, manifestation | 4 Comments »

Living With Intention

February 12th, 2012

Every moment of every day you make choices.

Very likely only a small percentage of these choices give you pause, since most of them are subconscious, requiring no deliberation.  Sometimes the choice is reflexive, such as jumping at loud noises or laughing at a good joke.  Sometimes the choice was made long ago and has become a habit, such as whether to fasten your seat belt or brush your teeth.  Sometimes the choice is cultural, such as wearing shoes in restaurants or saying grace before a meal.  Sometimes the choice is personal, such as what you prefer to eat for breakfast or the route you take to work.  Such choices, once made, function like pre-sets on your radio, freeing you from constant evaluation and decision-making.  They help you save the energy of fine tuning for more important stuff.

Pre-set, however, may also keep you locked into patterns that no longer serve you.  Most people draw conclusions about life from incomplete evidence or faulty premises.  Such conclusions become beliefs and habit patterns, and are often accepted as “truths,” and they can extend across the full spectrum of your life.  For example, at some point you chose what you believe about . . .

  • Yourself:  I’m funny/serious, I’m an introvert/an extrovert, I’m dumb/intelligent, I’m athletic/clumsy.
  • The way the world works:  Life is struggle, life is good, life’s a bitch and then you die.
  • Humanity:  people are basically evil, people are basically good.
  • Specific people:  He’s trustworthy, she’s caring, he’s harsh, she’s sly, she’s creative, he’s solid.

Early Choices Influence Later Decisions

Even though in many cases, such beliefs feel true, sure and incontrovertible, they are all choices, which means other possibilities exist.  Still, as long as you hold a certain view, it forms the basis for myriad other decisions:

  • If you have decided you’re clumsy, how does that influence other choices such as the work you do, the activities you participate in, the people you associate with, the parties you attend, etc?
  • If you have decided life is good, how does that influence the way you handle money, the work you’ve chosen, the things you do for fun?
  • If you have decided people are basically evil, how does this affect where you live, the way you do business, the defenses you erect around yourself, even the way you walk down the street?
  • If you have decided your child is irresponsible, how does that influence other choices such as the permissions you grant, the gifts you bestow, the allowance you set, the rules you impose?

Yet how many of these beliefs did you acquire intentionally?  How many did you adopt from someone else?  How many are based on tested premises and how many are based on assumptions?  How many are true for you?

Of course, many of the factors of your life seem accidental:  you had little choice regarding your parents, your gender, the country of your birth, or your genetic structure.  Others were determined by someone else:  You had little choice regarding the work your parents did, the neighborhood you grew up in, your family’s religion, or your primary education.

Given you had no control over the above factors, how much do you now live by accident, and how much do you live on purpose?

Choose to Live on Purpose

Most people live by accident, even when they would prefer to live on purpose.  For instance, did you choose the work you do, or did you sort of fall into it?  You probably chose the neighborhood you live in, did you choose the city, the state, the country?  Whether or not you were born into it, did you choose your current religion?

Any un-examined aspects of your life tip the scale in favor of by accident. Any aspects you have examined and chosen consciously tip the scale in favor of on purpose. Whenever you’re on auto-pilot, the scale tips toward by accident. When you live mindfully, you live on purpose.

Mindfulness is key.  Through mindfulness, you discern what’s true for you and what’s not.  When you persist in something that is not true for you, there are always consequences.  Your soul rebels, your body suffers, the endeavor takes more effort, success is difficult if not impossible.  By paying attention to the signals, you gain self-knowledge and you can make wiser choices.

I have a basic rule regarding manifestation:  An intention must be true for you, and you must be willing to be true to it.  In this post, I’m going to probe the second half of this rule – being willing to be true to what you want.

Listen to Your Resistance

If something is not true for you, your entire being will resist.  Your intuition will provide uneasiness, your emotions will register unhappiness and frustration, your body will send signals of unwellness, etc.  As soon as you acknowledge the messages and make a different choice, the struggles will abate.

When you resist something that is true for you, you will experience the same kinds of messages.  Your soul will ache to go in the direction of your best good, you will experience unhappiness and feelings of loss, your body will send signals of unwellness, etc.

An acquaintance of mine was born with a phenomenal artistic ability.  When he was young he believed in himself and saw himself as an artist, but somewhere along the line he began to doubt.  He knew art was true for him, and he yearned for it all his life, but he was never willing to be true to it.  Someone once said, “Don’t die with the music still inside.”  My acquaintance died with his art still inside.

If you’ve been resisting something that’s true for you, you can make a different choice any time you want.  You do not have to explore your psyche or your past to discover why you’re resisting.  You do have to leave Interpreter Mode.  You do have to stop indulging in all fears, reasons, blame, resignation, doubts, frustrations, rationalizations, etc. that support your resistance.  You do have to open both your heart and your mind to your “music.”  Your talents and abilities and your core values reveal your truth.  The universe supports your truth.  When you trust your truth, every aspect of that truth becomes available to you.

Willingness is Key

Such willingness begins with choice.  You may be fully aware of what’s true for you, yet still resist receiving it.  Here’s a basic program for unleashing the innate power of something that’s already true for you.

1.  Identify something you want in a general (even vague) way.  It could be something you want to have – a house, job, family, health, peace, etc.  It could be something you want to be – kind, rich, happy, successful, etc.  It could be something you want to do – travel, build a business, paint, get married, etc.  Identify it.  Name it.  Put it into words

2.  Imagine what you want as finished, complete, yours.  What emotions come up for you?  What draws you toward this thing you want?  Imagine how will you feel when this is what you have, who you are, what you do.  Will you feel happy, confident, at peace, giddy, ecstatic, grateful, proud

3.  Identify who besides yourself this will serve and how it will serve them.  You are not the only one who will benefit from what you want.  All true intentions include others in some way.  Perhaps what you want will serve others directly; for instance, if you want to be a doctor you will help people to better health.  Perhaps your service will be less direct; for instance, artists serve by creating their work and giving it to the world.  Perhaps your service is intimate and personal, i.e. loving someone.  Perhaps you serve the world generally simply by generating positive energy.

4.  Describe what you want.  Using words, dive into it.  Feel it, taste it, revel in it.  Immerse yourself in it.  Let it expand, solidify, evolve, mutate.  Jot down any particulars that comes to mind:  what components it includes, where it could take place, additional aspects of how it feels, where it might lead.

Before step 5, I’d like to make a couple of observations about intention statements.

  • The words themselves are not magic.  Regardless of your beliefs about the power of words, the words themselves have no power – the power is in the emotions that support the words.  Words have only the power you give them.
  • The more you empower your words with high-level emotions, the more powerful your statement will be as a tool and the more benefit you will receive from it.
  • If something else works better for you than words, (such as meditation or visualization) let the words help you identify your intention and connect with the creative emotions in a way that is true for you.

5.  Identify the following components that will comprise your intention statement.

  • Choose an emotion or two from Partner Mode or Creator Mode to use in bringing what you want into reality.   Select those with power for you, that resonate with you, and that will help connect you with what you want.  You may want to use the emotions you chose in step 2, or you may want something with more creative power.
  • Claim ownership of what you want, by phrasing your intention in first person.  When you put yourself in the picture, you become the creator, you assume the power of your intention.
  • Choose a strong verb.  Use present tense, as if it were a done deal.  Consider the following variations and see which seems strongest and/or most appropriate to you:  I am welcoming.  I welcome.  I have welcomed.  I am.
  • Get specific.  Name what you want:  a successful business, optimal health, a new car, a happy relationship.  Throw in as many adjectives as you like:  you might prefer thriving, profitable and customer-focused to successful.  If you like, add the outcome you envision:  and we’re blissfully happy together.

6.  Put these four components – creative emotion, noun, verb, intention – together in a statement.  Here are some examples.

  • With joy and authenticity I enjoy exuberant prosperity.
  • With delight and gratitude, I live and love happily with my new significant other.
  • With confidence and enthusiasm, my business doubles in size and service.
  • With generosity and serenity, I send my manuscript out into the world to be enjoyed by millions of readers.

Spent 15-20 minutes every day processing this statement (this intention) into your mind, your heart, and even your body.  Imagine it as a done deal, as real, as a miracle.  Let the energy of it fill your body and resonate within you.  Create it from within as possible, then as probable, then as inevitable.

As you work with this statement, you may find yourself using different words and revising the order of those words.  Let it evolve; it’s likely to become more and more true for you as you allow your subconscious to contribute.  As you empower with this statement with time and energy, you will bring what you want to life.

And have fun.  Don’t take it too seriously or fill it with expectation.  Let what you want come to you.

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Posted in Attraction, Creator Mode, Partner Mode, Willingness, intentions, manifestation, personal power | 8 Comments »

What’s True For You

February 5th, 2012

As I’ve worked with intentions, my own and those of others, I’ve found the following to be a good rule of thumb:

Choose what’s true for you, and be willing to be true to it.

Of course, this may raise the challenging question: “How do I know what’s true for me?”

It’s important to note that someone in Victim Mode can’t even ask that question. People in Victim Mode are more likely to want safety than Best Good.

Interpreter Mode also thwarts this question. If you’re focused on validation, keeping score, weighing the odds, what’s not right, making your point, reasons why not, blame, or any other form of struggle, you will have no energy left to look within. The stories you’ve generated to justify, explain, reclaim, rationalize or validate will distort your perspectives of the world, of your relationships with others, and of especially yourself. You can ask, “What’s true for me?” but you will not be able to discern the answer.

When I was a young woman on the brink of adulthood, getting married was high on my priority list. My Interpreter emotions influenced my choices and impeded my powers of discernment. And the man I married also operated from a solid Interpreter base. The marriage turned out not to be true for either of us, but because we didn’t understand ourselves we couldn’t understand each other. During our occasional forays into Observer Mode we could value each others’ strengths, but our expectations, evaluations, mis-aligned values and judgments kept tripping us up. In some ways, we made the marriage work. We had some good times together. We raised two awesome children. We worked extremely well together and we liked building things. Neither of us was particularly happy in the relationship. If either of us had been more self-aware and observant, our results would have been vastly different

Allowing What’s True for You

When you move from Interpreter Mode to Observer Mode, everything changes. When you achieve neutrality, your view of what’s possible suddenly expands and moves from black-and-white to full-spectrum color. Now when you ask what’s true for you, you can attune to the indicators.

People are most likely to choose something that’s not true for them when operating from Victim or Interpreter Mode. It’s all about possibilities – or lack of them. Consider the range of possibilities using the color metaphor:

In Victim Mode, things range from the total darkness of no hope to the dark gray of no more. In Interpreter Mode, think of the dark gray as grim and the light gray as merely frustrating. The darker emotions (violence, hostility, anxiety, grief) create the most struggle and keep the possibilities most restricted. The lighter Interpreter emotions (pride, devotion, relief, desire) allow enough illumination to move from not possible to difficult. The world is still restricted to black and white. And you are a full-color person.

In Observer Mode, your options become much brighter. Any neutral choice will be more true for you than those struggling for air from the muck of disappointment, embarrassment, smugness, shame – or any other emotion derived solely from your interpretation of past experiences.

Because Observer Mode emotions have the power of neutrality, any intention set from this mode will be true for you in a calm, neutral way. Deriving contentment and comfort from your choices now becomes possible.

When you operate from Partner Mode, you enter the world of color, and every intention you set will take you more and more strongly toward your deepest truth. This is a realm of more risk, more challenge and more growth. The path is tougher, the gains greater, the service fuller, and the results more exhilarating. You may, on occasion, experience emotions from Interpreter mode. Observe them, identify them, acknowledge your investment in them, and replace them with emotions from Partner mode.

Creating What’s True for You

Creator Mode is full spectrum, full density, living color. When you are attuned to Creator emotions, every intention you set, every choice you make will be true for you.

Most people rarely connect with what is true for them. Most people operate from Victim or Interpreter modes most of the time. Victim mode produces pain and suffering. Any intentions set or any choices made from Victim mode will also produce pain and suffering, and you can be sure those intentions and choices are not true for you. Interpreter Mode produces struggle. Any intentions set or any choices made from Interpreter Mode will also produce struggle, and you can be sure those intentions and choices are not true for you.

Likewise, since Observer emotions produce calm, any intentions you set or choices you make from neutrality will produce calm, and that calm indicates increasing alignment with what’s true for you.

Partner emotions produce opportunity.

(A word of caution here: “opportunity” can mean different things in different circumstances. Bernard Madoff lured people into his Ponzi scheme with an “opportunity,” but the emotions that motivated his victims probably fell within some aspect of Interpreter Mode. They may have been motivated by acquisition emotions: greed, ambition, desire, envy, gloating, yearning, lust. Or they might have been motivated by anxiety emotions, particularly concerning lack: defensiveness, dread, frustration, impatience, insecurity.)

When we look at opportunity from the Partner perspective, consider the expansion value of attraction, confidence, gratitude, harmony, willingness and tenacity. Practitioners of Partner mode know their part includes effort, focus, attention, respect for both the challenge and the other participants.

True for You is Always Your Best Good

Creator Mode produces Best Good, and your best good always connects most strongly to your truest truth.

People persist in situations that are not true for them for many reasons, including:

  • One or more of their values keeps them where they are.
  • The unknown is too frightening.
  • They lack confidence in their abilities.
  • They defer to the values and expectations of others.
  • They believe they’ll win out if they just try harder.
  • They can’t see any other possibilities.
  • They doubt their abilities.

Since I have experienced most of the above reasons, I can personally testify that choosing or persisting in any situation that is not true for you, for whatever reason, costs more than it’s worth.

By observing your emotions, you can recognize the extent to which you are connected to what’s true for you. By observing and acknowledging your results, you can recognize the extent to which a past choice was aligned with your truth. By observing current results, you will receive early-warning signals when a choice is not true for you.

Early warning signals can include physical ailments, losing things, forgetting things, accidents, persistent troublesome situations, conflicts with others. The first signal may be mild: a simple cold, a stubbed toe, spilled milk, feelings of annoyance. If you ignore the first signal, the second will be stronger: a sore throat, a sprained ankle, a clogged drain, increasingly frequent arguments. The more you ignore the signals, the harder your soul will work to get your attention. The ultimate penalty for persisting along a false course is death.

Please, please, please do not assume that all normal frustrations and set-backs on life indicate soul-level mis-alignment. Please do not judge yourself or others by a cold or a sprained ankle or a clogged drain. Accidents happen. I do, however, urge you to be willing to observe your own life; be willing to listen for the ways your soul speaks to you.

So now let’s look at ways to recognize whether the intention you want to set is true for you.

  • True choices draw you to them; you do not have to push into them.
  • True choices help you connect to PARTNER and CREATOR emotions.
  • True choices supply you with the courage to face your fears and doubts.
  • True choices resonate with your soul.
  • True choices serve others.

Finally, I’d like to touch on the second half of my opening statement: be willing to be true to the choices you make.

Personal growth is an extremely uneven process. Sometimes it feels like a long slow slog, sometimes the learning curve rises in a breath-taking sweep. Sometimes periods of steady growth can be marked by obvious gains. Sometimes there are fallow periods of absorbing, nurturing and rejuvenation. Because of this variance in your own personal growth patterns, you may sometimes feel impatient or frustrated.

Stay True During Fallow Season

During a slow slog or times when your momentum feel stalled, you may set an aggressive intention in an effort to “get the show on the road.” You may not be mentally ready, emotionally connected or sufficiently prepared to be true to such an intention. At such times it’s possible to set out in a true direction yet make an un-true choice. I have lots of experience with this one.

For instance, when I chose to become a writer, that was true for me. When I chose to write romance novels, I chose quickly and from self-doubt (I thought it would be easy), and my choice was not true for me.  I continued along that path for fifteen years, and it was all struggle.

On the other hand, during that struggle, when I began teaching writing, that was true for me. I grew, I served, I had fun, and happiness was my way. Many of my students have become successful authors, and I observed that those writers who succeeded were those for whom the intention was true for them, and they were true to it.

To be true to an intention requires you to make a couple of important decisions first.

  • Be willing to know yourself.
  • Be willing to release any fears, doubts and false beliefs.
  • Make sure your value system is yours and not someone else’s.
  • Be willing to listen to your heart.

I would like to recommend two excellent resources for aligning more truly with yourself:

  • The Miracle Way, my book on intention and manifestation, which is chock full of ideas for mastering Observer Mode.   $35.00.  Contact me directly at kathyjacobson.com to order a copy.  (+$5.00 postage and handling)
  • Finding Your Own North Star, by Martha Beck, published by Three Rivers Press, 2001.

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Choosing and Using

January 29th, 2012

In the mid-1990s, I attended a powerful workshop on abundance presented by Unity teacher  Edwina Gaines.  Somewhere in her workshop, she said, “What is up to you.  How is up to God.”  It’s the only thing I remember from the workshop, probably because at the time I was caught up in the importance of taking action.  Even though she continued with, “Listen for the divine idea,” I couldn’t get past my own belief in the need to do. I had experienced the difference between affirmations that worked and those that didn’t, and I saw that difference as aligning emotion with thought.  And I had observed over and over again the necessity of also aligning actions – putting words on paper if you want to write a book, putting miles on the bike if you want to take pack trips, eating right if you want to be healthy, etc.

So I pondered and puzzled over Edwina’s words, and after about a decade, I finally got it.  I finally learned to differentiate the what from the how. I saw that what is the essence of free will.  As human beings, choosing what is our opportunity, our responsibility, our obligation.  No force in the universe (not even God) can choose for us.  We must choose, and choosing what must come first.  If we jump too quickly into the how, we’ll end up with the wrong what. Further, if we try to control the how we limit the miracle.

Taking on Your Part

However, since I’ve been working with the modes of personal power, I’ve begun to see aspects of how that do belong to us.  The more I work with emotions, the more I see them as the energy of how. Emotional energy is the force that empowers results.  If you want a certain result, you can identify the emotional energy that produces the outcome, generate that emotion within you and then use the energy to fuel the result you’ve chosen.  This is not exerting power over your emotions so much as accessing the power of your emotions.  In this respect, identifying and investing emotional energy is the how that’s up to you.

I’ve also been observing another interaction between what and how that blurs the boundary between them even more.  When you decide you want something, it’s totally natural, perhaps instinctive, to immediately begin mapping out the route between here and there.  Whether you call this a business plan, a plan of attack, a project plan, or merely a to-do list, you gain confidence in your idea when you assure yourself of the potential for success by envisioning the means to get there.  If you can’t see the how, you may discard the idea immediately.  This could be called the process of how-to-what.

Moving From What to How

Consider instead a what-to-how approach.

Begin by identifying what you want.  You can be as broad or as particular as you like, but use specific terms.  A general sense of something, expressed in general terms can come out hazy and not quite formed, i.e., “I’d like to get to a place in my heart where I can let go of animosity towards others,” or “It’d be nice if I could feel confident enough of my voice to sing in front of people.”

Instead, either the broad statement, “I want joy,” or the specific statement, “I want a happier relationships with _______,” gets more to the heart of what you want.  You can say, “I want to live on purpose,” or you can say, “I want to sing at the Met,” and either one can be perfectly accurate and true for you.

To illustrate this for yourself, draw a pyramid on a piece of paper.  Draw a horizontal line slightly below the peak of the pyramid, forming a small triangle on top.  Write what you want in the triangle.  This is your intention.  At this point, don’t give a single thought to the large space below the line.  Everything below this topmost level is how.

Sometimes we choose things that aren’t true for us.  Sometimes we resist something that is true for us.  The first how that belongs to you is to make your intention absolutely, totally, 100% true for you.

You may already have a deep emotional connection with what you want.  If so, this aspect of how may feel pretty straightforward and easily itemized.  Whether you have the connection or want to achieve it, the following practice will help you strengthen and empower your intention.

  • Imagine what you want as accomplished, manifest, complete, a done deal.

Refuse to let doubts and potential obstacles interfere with this envisioning.  If you want joy, imagine you have it.  If you want a relationship with someone to be happy, imagine it is. If you want to be living your purpose, imagine you are.  If you want to sing at the Met, imagine you’re on the stage.  See it accomplished, real, now.

If you can’t quite imagine what you want as real, find something comparable you have experienced and recall the feeling.  Perhaps seeing yourself on stage at the Met is a bit of a stretch, but when you ski you maneuver the moguls with ease and confidence.  Remember the success and pleasure you experience on a challenging slope.  Once you feel it, it’s transferable.

  • As you envision what you want as fulfilled, let the emotion(s) of fulfillment bubble up within you.  Recognize them and name them.  Do you feel happiness?  Joy?  Peace?  Love?  Confidence?  Exhilaration?  Gratitude?
  • Let yourself experience these emotions to the fullest.  Be them.  Let them expand and fill your entire body.  Let them flow down your arms and legs to your fingers and toes.  Feel the vibrations of them as fully and completely as you can.
  • Think about your intention and envelop it in this heightened level of your emotions.  Infuse it with these emotions.
  • At least once a day, repeat this exercise.  Imagine, identify, experience, infuse.

Emotion as How

Choosing and using Partner and Creator emotions is your part of how. This practice will help you align your thoughts and emotions with each other and with your intention.

When you become truly, fully aligned with your intention, it becomes accomplished.  You may not be joyful to the exclusion of pain or suffering, but you see such joy as both possible and attainable.  You may not yet be fully living your purpose, but you are fully connected and aligned with that purpose.  You may not yet be singing at the Met, but you know without a doubt performance is your destiny.  You may not yet have a loving relationship with someone, but you have unflinching trust best good for both of you.

And now it’s time to look below the pinnacle of the pyramid.  Using horizontal lines, divide the large space into several sections to represent the steps of how – the journey from where you are to where you want to be.  Some journeys may have two or three steps, and others may have more than ten.  What do you see as your next step along the way, the next leg of your journey?

If joy is your intention, perhaps the next step is a happy home, or peace with your body.  If a happier relationship is your intention, perhaps the next step is becoming happier with yourself.  If singing at the Met is your intention, perhaps the next step is gaining confidence during auditions.  If living on purpose is your intention, perhaps envisioning the way you will serve is your next step.

Whatever you see as your next step now become a what. Now you can set a new intention specific to this step.  Now you can identify the emotions that will help you partner with it and/or create it.  Now you can choose to experience those emotions.  Now you can infuse this what with those emotions.

Continue building your pyramid from the top down by converting each successive how into a what. At each level remember that everything beneath the level you’re working on will stay a how until you get there – and as long as it’s a how it’s not up to you.

Enhance your Product

Now draw a strong vertical pole from the base of your pyramid up through the peak.  This pole is your product.  Your product is what you give to others, the way you do and/or will serve with this intention.  It remains a constant, receiving your efforts, no matter what step you are on, no matter what others efforts you make in support of your intention.  What you ultimately create will be directly related to your product.  In many cases the quality of your product determines the ultimate quality of the miracle.

Some intentions have very obvious products, i.e. the knowledge, the skill, the wisdom, the techniques, the music, the manuscripts, etc.  For other intentions, the product can be more nebulous.  For instance, if you want joy, what’s the product?  Actually, joy is both the what and the how. The more you practice joy – in your heart and in your service – the more joy you’ll have.

This brings us to yet another aspect of how that is up to you.  It’s up to you to become a person who is whatever it is you want.  When you start asking, “But how do I do this?” practice responding with this answer:  “By becoming the person who is this.”  (Or has this, or does this.)

If you were already this person, you would already be or have or do.  Since you are not or have not or do not, give attention and energy to becoming.  Working on the product certainly contributes to your becoming your intention, but action must be supported by thoughts and emotions.

In instances where the intention and the journey are the same, all efforts to become are investments in the product.  The core of any product is the service you render.  If you are becoming joy, let your joy be a service to others.  The more you become your product, the more you enrich the lives of others through the state of your own heart.

Other more physical intentions also require you to be the person who does.  As you strengthen your product, refine your thinking.  As you refine your thinking, continue to evoke and express partner and creator emotions.  Through the energy of you emotions, your thoughts, and your actions, you will become the person who receives.  You will manifest the miracles you’ve chosen.

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