Archive for the ‘Making Miracles’ Category

Getting What You Want

Sunday, December 11th, 2011

To paraphrase Shakespeare:  What to choose and what not to choose, that is the question.

Followed, of course, by all manner of other questions:  What choices are actually within my power?  What if what I want is not within my power to obtain or achieve?  What if I make a mistake?  What if I don’t deserve it?  What if God has something else in mind for me?  How do I go about getting it?  What if I fail (stumble, look stupid, hurt someone else in the process, lose)?  What if I get it, and end up disappointed (again)?  Etc.

Choosing can be difficult for many reasons, starting with the need to know yourself pretty well and including the limits of the human imagination.  No matter how creative you are, it’s impossible to envision every outcome.  And it’s especially impossible to envision the best way for something to come about.

So here you sit, facing the questions of what to choose (or not choose), besieged by additional questions and limited by your imagination.  And held captive by your assessment of yourself.  Now what?

Well, you can wait for something to happen and hope it’s good.  You can fall back on old habits and old choices and make the best of it.  You can find ways to explain your immobility:  reality, the economy, your obligations, your fears, other people, ego, your lack of resources (money, education, talent, opportunity).  You can look for a sign.  You can experiment with the options you see.  You can go to work on becoming better acquainted with yourself.

You can learn to make miracles.

The Nature of the Miracle

Traditionally, miracles carry a religious connotation, occurring as a result of divine intervention.  You pray, and the gods respond in your favor – if they favor your request.  When I first began to explore the idea of miracles, I realized I held a core belief in the laws of the universe.  I believe natural laws govern all outcomes, and even the gods work within the laws.  I concluded if we can’t see how an outcome happens, we simply do not understand the laws.  (I’m even more convinced of that since I’ve been studying quantum physics.)

For most of my life, I’ve been observing patterns and then dissecting the patterns to discover the contributing factors.  One of the most powerful insights I’ve gained over the years is that any energy or entity “out there” wants our best good.  Completely.  In all things.  Without exception.  Cosmic Consciousness (or God, or The Source, or whatever you want to call it) wants us to be happy, healthy, wealthy, wise, successful, and abundant.

That entity wants us to know ourselves, to know love, to gain enlightenment, to access the full measure of our personal power, and to serve powerfully.  There are no trade-offs.  We don’t have to sacrifice something in order to receive something.  We don’t need to have abundance in order to be happy, or health in order to be wise, or love in order to serve, or service in order to know love.

Of course, if you believe in such trade-offs, they become true.  But what if they aren’t true?  What if you could believe in miracles without limitations?  What if you could believe in your own best good?  What if you could believe your best good was your birthright?  What if you could believe that just because you were born on this planet you were given the right to enjoy the full fruits of life?

I’m going to assume you do believe this, and you do want Your Best Good.

Who Knows What’s Best?

Let’s explore Best Good a bit more deeply.  First of all, recognize Your Best Good is best for you, and you are the only arbiter.  No one on this planet knows what’s best for you better than you do – although cosmic consciousness might.  Your parents don’t know, your teachers didn’t know, your boss doesn’t know, your neighbors don’t know, you minister doesn’t know, your therapist doesn’t know.  No one else knows.  Everyone else will see your best good through their own lenses, and their lenses will be tinted by such factors as their beliefs, their experiences, their values, their view of you, and what’s in it for them.

But, you may be saying, I don’t know what my best good is!  Yes, you do.  At least your soul knows.  Your mind has probably been listening to others for too many years to be able to sort what you know from what everyone else says.  However, your heart and your body have ways of communicating that knowledge to you, if you are willing to listen.

I envision the methodology for making miracles to have three parts.  Each part of the model is an action point and requires your full commitment .

First – Choose, and Choose Truly

First, the choice you make must a true for you – and you must be willing to be true to it.  If you make a choice that is not true for you, you will know it in one of two ways:  1) You won’t be able to hold the intention.  It will simply slip out of your mind and out of your life.  2)  You’ll start getting messages from your true self.  Those messages will begin with a nudge, a pinprick of discomfort, a slip-up somewhere:  you’ll come down with a cold, your car won’t start, you’ll lose a computer file, etc.  (This is not to say every slip-up is a message, but it pays to explore the possibility.)

If you pay attention to the first message and correct your course, you’ll soon be on your way to Your Best Good.  If you ignore the first message, the second will be stronger:  the flu, perhaps, or a rear-ender, or a crashed hard-drive.

If the second message slides past without acknowledgment, and you continue to pursue a choice that isn’t true for you, each successive message will be stronger still.  Pay attention to your pain, whatever form it takes.  It could be serving as a wake-up call, as a seer stone, as a magnifying glass, as a window to your soul, as a reflection of a past un-true choice, etc.

Choices in favor of Your Best Good will always result in less pain, less suffering, less struggle, fewer obstacles, a faster pace, and greater peace.

Second – Align With Your Choice

This section is tricky because it’s absolutely impossible to see the unification – the alignment – take place.  The only way you can know whether or not you’re aligned is to look at the result.  If what you have chosen isn’t happening, you’re not aligned with it.  You’re aligned with whatever is happening.

The mis-alignment can be in your thoughts, in your emotions, or in your actions.  Since actions are the most observable, it’s fairly easy to assess whether they’re in unity with your choice.  If you’ve chosen to be healthy, are you living healthily?  If you’ve chosen to write a book, are you actually writing?  If you’ve chosen to build a business, are you focused on service?

Conscious thought is also fairly easy to monitor, just tune into your mind and listen.  Are you critical or creative?  Are you distracted or determined?  Are you candid or calculating?

Sub-conscious thoughts, beliefs and emotions are more subtle, but they are not invisible.  They show up in such non-subtle ways as trials, tribulations, and pain.

During three recent coaching sessions I worked with people in physical pain.  One client had pain in her shoulder and numbness in her forearm, one had sciatica, and one had irritable bowel syndrome.  In each case, we looked for emotional conflicts by probing for the metaphorical message in the pain.  Once the client found the message, listened to it, and made a different choice, the pain eased up.  My client with shoulder and arm issues, found a belief that it was her responsibility to be the “good right arm” of others, and in accordance with that belief she was investing an excessive amount of energy in other people’s goals.  She decided to refocus her attention on her wholeness and best good.  My client with sciatica realized the pain began when she let herself be drawn into a situation she didn’t like and became angry with herself.  We revisited the incident and she chose calm instead of anger.  My client with the irritated bowel found he was taking responsibility for the emotions of others.  As soon as he identified this burden and acknowledged he had chosen to take it on, he was able to release it.

In each case, when my client recognized the inner conflict and released the part that wasn’t in alignment with Best Good, the pain subsided or disappeared.

Third, Receive the Miracle

Receiving may seem like a no-brainer.  If you choose truly, and if you unify your thoughts, actions and emotions, of course you’re willing to receive!

However, since the miracle will be Your Best Good, it might not look exactly like you envisioned when you first made your choice.  You’ve heard the old story of the guy sitting on his roof during a flood, praying for deliverance and turning away rescuers because he expected God to magically transport him away from danger.  You can’t know in advance what the miracle will look like, what form it will take, or how it will show up in your life.  Be willing to open your arms and embrace the miracle that comes.  Sometimes the miracle is the end result, and the only thing left for you is to celebrate.  Sometimes the miracle is an opportunity, and it’s up to you to stride through the door and proceed eagerly up the path.

Wanting Your Best Good is not a substitute for more specific choices.  If you want to write a best-selling novel, decide what that would feel like to you, and choose it.  Unify your thoughts, actions and emotions with that choice.  Then let go of any expectation, any concept of what that must look like.  Go to work; keep your emotions in partner or creator mode, and willingly receive Your Best Good.

The universe will then deliver the miracle.

(If you would like more information about personal life coaching, or would like a free introductory session, please contact me:  kathy@kathyjacobson.com)

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Proceed With Courage

Sunday, March 6th, 2011

The alignment aspect of making miracles is often the most challenging – especially in those areas of our lives where we experience the most struggle.

An often-overlooked way to bring your thoughts and your actions into alignment with your emotions is through courage. And then, courage grows as the result of such alignment. As with many of the power principles, the way is the result and the result is the way.

The following five techniques will help you gain courage, use courage, and accept courage as the inevitable result.

1. Listen to your intuition

Your inner voice is the voice of your soul – that inner essence of you that transcends the physical and is one with the universe. Your inner voice will always be truer for you than the voices of anyone else. However, learning to trust your intuition over the advice, beliefs, agendas, opinions, habits and experiences of others may take practice.

Begin by recognizing that everyone else speaks through their own emotional filter. Consider that your emotional filter began forming when you were an infant (perhaps before you emerged from the womb), when you experienced (or didn’t) your mother’s love. Since infancy, you have been interpreting what goes on around you and assembling your view of yourself, your life and the way the world works.

From these first beginnings your emotional filter has evolved, fed by emotion, attitude, experience, in-coming information, the filters of others, your education, and assorted other inputs. Everyone accumulates an individual perspective by way of this emotional radiation, some of it true, some of it not. Generally speaking, this makes the voices of others no more reliable than your own.

Your true inner voice, however, can sidestep your emotional filter, and it’s the only voice with that power. Here are some techniques to help you hear it and trust it.

  • Turn down the volume. The world itself generates so much noise it can become nothing but static. You may need to turn off such distractions as the TV, radio, or stereo. You may need to shut your doors and windows against the external noises of your environment. You may need to limit the number of people whose opinions influence you.
  • Use the mute button. Spend some time every day in silence. This may mean devotional silence such as prayer or meditation. It may mean some kind of quiet occupation, such as reading or sewing. It may mean getting out into the silence of nature. Silence helps you gain the calm of the Observer.
  • Calm your own “monkey mind” by releasing any Victim or Interpreter emotions. Should guilt, anger or disappointment start yammering at you over past events, extend compassion to yourself or others and come back to the present. Should fear, obsession or anxiety start eating at you about the future, detach from outcome, move into trust, and come back to the present.  Remember, your thoughts and emotions are yours by choice.
  • Trust your infinite partner. Your inner voice is in direct communication with the wisdom of the universe. That wisdom is available to you at any time just for the asking. Ask and you shall receive.

As with most things, the more you listen, the more you’ll hear. As you learn to rely on your intuition, you will discover how reliable it is. When you recognize you receive reliable wisdom, it’s easier to bring your thoughts, actions and emotions into alignment.

2. Be Open

By now you know the basic formula for manifestation:  set an intention, align with that intention, receive the results. I’ve been approaching the middle step, alignment, as a task, as the inner work. Now let’s look as alignment as a gift, as a miracle.

To be open to alignment requires some effort on your part. You must dismantle your barriers, and chances are you’ve had those barriers in place a long time and have grown comfortable with them. They protect you from anything on the other side of them, even if at the same time they’re preventing you from reaching what you really want.

Opening your gates takes courage. Moving beyond your walls takes courage. Striding into the unknown takes courage. A huge part of being open is being out in the open. Exposed. Vulnerable perhaps, but if you’re hiding behind your barriers, how can the miracle find you?

What does it take to have the courage of openness?

  • Love for yourself and your fellow human beings.
  • A commitment to purpose, to what you have to learn and to what you have to give.
  • Confidence that what you want wants you.
  • Happiness.

When you adopt this courage and become open, you are more likely to experience the miracle of alignment. Alignment then produces all other miracles. When you are aligned and unconflicted, when you are congruent and connected, only best good can occur.

3. Exercise Your Emotions

Emotions are creative energy, and with every emotion you experience you create something. In most instances, the only evidence of this creation is the result:  fear creates danger, love creates healing, anger creates malignancy, etc. Because every emotion creates something, you can identify the emotions you’re experiencing by the results they produce:  if you have safety, you know peace; if you have friends and family, you exude love; if you live in abundance, you radiate openness and generosity.

Most people express their emotions and receive the result without making a connection between the two. Their emotions roil out of them willy-nilly, creating results as if by accident. Because accidents occur within whatever medium is available, it’s easy to explain the accident as the result of physical circumstances. The cause and effect can seem so perfectly logical the emotional contribution is often overlooked or ignored.

If this has been your pattern, you can break free of it by becoming conscious of your emotional energy and using it purposefully and intentionally.

Remember, you can purposefully use your emotions to create anything you want through mindfulness, intention and practice:

  • Become aware of the cause-and-effect nature of emotions. Victim emotions result in misery; Interpreter emotions result in struggle; Observer emotions result in calm; Partner emotions result in cooperation; and Creator emotions result in oneness.
  • Know what you want. The more knowledgeable and intentional you are about what you want, the more you can manifest that specific result.
  • Practice. Apply the appropriate emotion to the specific situation.

Have the courage to use your emotions to create intentionally. Be confident enough to choose what you want. Be brave enough to acknowledge what you feel. Be fearless enough to choose the emotions that will create the life you want.

4. Allow Best Good

How much courage does it take to envision best good?  A lot. Usually because most people restrict best good. Some common restrictions are:

  • Best good is bigger than most people can imagine, so they don’t try.
  • Most people think of best good in terms of “reward,” something that must be deserved in order to be received.
  • Many people want to withhold best good from others, and thus withhold it from themselves.
  • Some people are afraid of best good.

There are two restrictions on best good. The first is existing circumstances. Given existing circumstances, best good is the best possible outcome. For instance, in winter, best possible good is probably not a sudden swing into summer. The second is your best good won’t diminish the good of the whole. For instance, suddenly summer would have worldwide consequences in terms of food production, local consequences in terms of expectations and preparedness, and individual consequences on people’s body rhythms. No matter how much you might want summer, visualize summer, affirm summer and bless summer, it would be pretty hard to conceive of it as a general best good.

On the personal level, best good is never restricted, never limited by immediate and conditional circumstances. (Such as illness, poverty, loneliness, unemployment, etc.) Best good wants to soar, to expand, to be free. Change limiting emotions to expansive ones, and you get an expansive result. Have the courage to visualize and radiate best good, and miracles can happen.

Expansiveness, yes; excess, no. Excess tends to encourage negative behaviors such as greed, avarice, jealousy, intoxication, and control, and thus creates more harm than good.

Best good often looks different than you’d expect, mostly due to limitations of the imagination. Have the courage to accept best good if it shows up a form surprises you. Gracefully and gratefully welcome the unexpected.

5. Energize Your Intention

Give your intention a good, solid booster shot of happiness. Happiness enjoys, delights in, welcomes, enthuses, laughs with and blesses. Happiness doesn’t hold back. Happiness is perhaps the most amazingly huge, expansive power in the universe. Only love has as much constructive power. (Hate and anger are equally strong, but they destroy.)  Where love is the greatest healing power, happiness is the greatest creative power. Creative in terms of originating, building, generating, establishing, expanding, etc. While all emotions create a result, happiness is creation itself.

When you infuse an intention with happiness, you cannot get any result other than best good. Happiness and best good go together. Where you have happiness you have best good, and where you have best good you’ll find happiness. Happiness is not just an end, it’s the means to an end. Employ it as your means to your intention. Use it to energize what you want. The happier you are as you envision your best good, the faster your best good will come to you. A few ways to empower your intention with happiness include:

  • Open your senses and enjoy what you experience through them.
  • Stay present. Refuse to stew over the past or agonize over the future.
  • Detach from expectation; stay focused on best good.
  • Smile, play, laugh, celebrate.
  • Enjoy every aspect of the process, even the hard parts.

Happiness has the power to join you and your intention into a congruent whole. If you withhold happiness in any measure, you cannot integrate that aspect into the whole, and best good becomes almost good, or next-best good.

Happiness is not just a good idea, it’s an essential key.

Application

I’ve numbered these techniques solely for the sake of presentation. They are not a step-function or a hierarchy. Use them as appropriate to energize your courage. Internalize them to follow your path boldly. Master them to access ever expanding layers of your personal power.

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Empower Your Miracles

Sunday, February 27th, 2011

In the article Clarify Your Intention, I invited you to set an intention and formalize it as a statement. Part of the exercise was to identify those whom your intention would serve and to imagine how it would serve them. I believe when you add service to others, your intentions grow wings. Suddenly what you want is no longer grounded, no longer plodding along. Once in flight, it soars swiftly and easily into the miracle.

Service, at this miracle-level, is given without conditions, carries no judgment, and holds no expectations. You reach out to others, simply to help them along their way, to enrich their experiences, to empower them.

Giving and Receiving

One of the biggest obstacles to such simple service is thinking that what someone else wants conflicts with or obstructs what you want.

Say, for instance, you love the city life you’ve created, and your significant other wants to move into a cabin in the mountains. Or you want your daughter to go to college, and she wants to be a ski bum in the winter and write during the summer. Or you want to implement a new process at work and your boss doesn’t want anything to change. Or your neighbor supports gun control and you want to carry.

When your values, ideals, preferences and desires conflict with those of someone else, where does service come in?  You can’t even understand what they want; let alone support it.

It is, of course, important to stay true to your integrity, which may make such situations seem non-negotiable. Perhaps they are. How can you compromise on the second amendment, or not give your best at work, or let your daughter ruin her life, or uproot and leave friends and family for the sake of some mid-life crisis?

On the other hand – assuming miracle-making service is given without conditions, carries no judgment, and holds no expectations – what would happen if you removed any conditions you’ve imposed, stopped judging, and released your expectations?  What if you stepped outside your own agenda and chose to truly understand the other person’s position?

So, your husband wants to simplify and move to a cabin. You’ll have to set your own preferences aside in order to recognize his underlying motivations. Some of those reasons will be more obvious (and perhaps more acceptable to you) than others. It may be easy to understand the need to simplify, but can you empathize enough to actually feel the urge to live closer to nature, to detach from past paradigms, to go looking for something that’s been missing?

So, your daughter wants to ski and write. If you can set your agenda aside, you’ll have a better chance of recognizing her hunger for freedom, her creativity, her love of adventure, her determination to listen to her heart and find her own way. Where you see a college education as a good way to both knowledge and security, she may see it as a good way to erode her soul.

So, you want to innovate and your boss wants to stagnate. Do you know anything about his obligations?  Are you privy to the pressures from his investors, his board of directors, or his family’s traditions?   Can you appreciate his efforts to do the best he can with what he’s got?

So, you think your neighbor wants to ban all guns, wants stern laws and stiff penalties. Have you ever asked him what gun control means to him?  Have you ever listened to the reasons supporting his concerns?

Becoming neutral – exercising acceptance, empathy and compassion – is the first step toward service at the Creator level. (See The Power of Emotion.)

Mastering Your Emotions

The second step is to become the master of your own emotions

When you’re in conflict with someone else, you see your reasoning as logical and your arguments as valid. You are steadied by your facts and supported by your common sense. Naturally, you’re passionate about what’s right.

But what if your passion – and that of the other person – creates and maintains the conflict?  What if the factors of the situation are actually secondary?

When you deem your position to be right (or even just mostly right) and the other person’s position to be wrong, you are in Interpreter mode.

Consider again the above examples.

Perhaps you resist the idea of moving to the mountains because: the whole idea is scary and overwhelming, you resent that your feelings don’t get more consideration, you deplore the prospect of roughing it, you want to protect what you’ve already built, you believe your spouse is immersed in a temporary and unrealistic fantasy.

Perhaps you resist your daughter’s plan for her life because you’re anxious for her, you’re disappointed in her choices, you’re certain a college education is necessary. Maybe deep down you envy and resent her free-wheeling ways.

Perhaps you resist your boss’s inertia because you’re certain you know a better way, you’re frustrated your suggestions aren’t given more consideration, you’re irritated by his attitudes and fears, you long for more responsibility and recognition, you’re afraid at this rate you’ll soon be out of a job.

Perhaps your differences with your neighbor are only partly about guns. Sure you believe in the right to carry, and you think he’s naïve, his dog barks half the night and poops on your lawn, and half of his front yard is an unsightly, poorly-tended vegetable garden.

Such underlying emotions are all from Interpreter mode, and Interpreter emotions always produce struggle. And the more you struggle, the stronger the conflict grows.

If you’ve already dropped your conditions and released your expectation, if you’ve already chosen neutrality, you’re halfway there. From that place of calm it’s fairly easy to release any remaining Interpreter emotions. And when you refuse to indulge in interpreter mode habits, you access more of your own power.

You also ease others away from their Interpreter tendencies by not adding the fuel of your so-called “passion” to their fires.

Mastery comes as you practice consciously choosing Partner mode emotions instead. When you operate from Partner mode, you create cooperation instead of conflict. For instance:

Imagine how discussions of whether or not to move to the mountains would be different if you replaced fear with trust, resentment with affection, aversion with tranquility, frustration with harmony, and suspicion with respect.

Imagine how your relationship with your daughter would improve if you replaced anxiety with confidence, disappointment with admiration, certainty with respect, envy with contentment, and impatience with gratitude.

Imagine how your dissatisfactions at work would abate if you replaced frustration with eagerness, ambition with willingness, longing with tenacity, and fear with confidence.

Imagine how the tension between you and your neighbor would ease up if you replaced arrogance with friendliness, helplessness with amusement, hostility with patience, and vexation with recognition.

The higher you move on the scale of emotions, the more personal power you access and the more you become the master of your emotions. The more you master your emotions, the more wisdom and empowerment you bring to the situations of your life.

Whenever you bring wisdom and empowerment into any situation, you serve others as well as yourself. You serve by releasing tension, by shedding fresh and clear light on situations, by making some of your enlightenment available to others.

When you empower others through your understanding, acceptance, encouragement, cooperation, and love, you expand your influence, gain credibility, form alliances, broaden your base, and roll out the welcome mat. What you give to others comes back to you.

Partner emotions always result in cooperation. When you free yourself from conditions, judgments and expectation, you open the door to a far wider range of possibilities than exist in Interpreter mode. When you are in full mastery of Partner emotions, best good becomes probable. You become an agent in bringing about the best good of others. You provide extraordinary service when you take yourself out of someone else’s picture.

The Universal Whole

This expansive energy you now experience and generate also strengthens your connection, partnership and oneness with the universe. In Partner mode, it’s easy to trust the universe will support you and others at the same time. Conflicts dissolve in best good because almost always the best good of others is also your best good.

Consider these ways in which the universe partners with you:

1.    The universe never judges. Your outcomes result directly and inevitably from the energies you generate – your thoughts, your actions and your emotions. There is no score-keeper-in-the-sky recording on a tally sheet whether you’re good or bad, marking you down for “bad” choices and rewarding you for “good” ones.

2.    On the universal level there are no arbitrary or unstated conditions. The rulebook never changes. You get out according to what you put in, and that’s that.

3.    The universe is never disappointed in you, because the universe holds no expectations. You do what you do, and you experience the results of your choices. If the universe has any desires for you, they are for your growth, your joy, your well-being and your best good. There may be hope that you will receive these miracles, and there may be rejoicing when you do; nevertheless, there will always be love and encouragement when you don’t.

Does this partnership with the universe support you, empower you, serve you?

What if you supported, empowered, and served others, following this model?

When you extend to others what the universe extends to you, you help strengthen the universal whole. The more you serve in this way, the stronger you become. The more you expand your Partner and Creator influence, the more others will move to higher levels of calm, cooperation and oneness.

Service and The Modes of Power

As a quick review, consider that the way you serve reveals your mode of power.

If you subjugate yourself, you are in Victim mode. This subjugation can occur in two ways. You can cede your power to someone else. Or you can submit to the emotions themselves. Whether you let others control you or you let your emotions dominate you, you relinquish your self.

If you serve reluctantly, you are in Interpreter mode. Almost all emotions in this mode have a sub-context of reluctance. You give because you must, or should, or have ulterior motives. Sometimes you want to avoid pain; sometimes you strive to come out ahead through  manipulation. Often, if you could see another option, you’d take it.

If you detach your emotions from your service you are in Observer mode. Neutral service takes little energy on your part, feels optional, and promises no particular benefit – and not offering it carries no penalty. Such gentle service can be as simple as offering a smile to a stranger, making a joke to ease tension, or holding the door for someone.

If you cooperate, you are in Partner mode. Overt generosity requires an emotional investment. You consciously and mindfully open your heart and help the other person in a pro-active way. Your service might be physical, but it can as easily be thoughtful or emotional. You want the other person’s success, the other person’s growth, the other person’s happiness and wellness, without putting it in the context of your own success or happiness.

If you bless, empower and trust, you are in Creator mode. At this level you become one with the other person – even if you remain in disagreement. You become one with the universe in sustaining and facilitating. You easily and effortlessly invest peace, love and joy in their efforts. You trust the other person’s best good as you trust your own.

Serve and Soar

Every worthy intention benefits someone else. As you align yourself with the miracle you have chosen to manifest, incorporate service into your efforts and watch those efforts take flight.

Service always imbues intention with greater power and swifter attainment.

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Mindfulness

Sunday, February 20th, 2011

Consider the ways in which thoughts, actions and emotions are the three powerful and creative energies of your life.

You know all about actions, those physical things you do with your body.  You know thoughts motivate and move you in certain directions.  And you experience every day the power your emotions have on your moods, your relationships and the state of your health.  When you bring these three forces – actions, thoughts, and emotions – into one congruent whole, when you live intentionally, you open the way for miracles.

These three forces always interact to create a result.  They must.  There is no alternative.

When you are aware and focused, these aspects of yourself create what you want and bring it into existence.

However, even when you are unaware, incongruent, and living by accident, these three energies interact to create a result.  They are your life forces, and they strive to satisfy your desires.  The trouble is, if you think you want one thing, yearn emotionally for something else, and act in favor of something else again, these forces become conflicted and bring turmoil to your life.  For instance, if you are in a difficult, combative relationship with someone (or something), at some level you have injected combative energy into that relationship.

On the other hand, in the smooth, easy, cooperative relationships of your life, your thoughts, actions and emotions are unified with love, generosity, confidence, and oneness – and that’s what you receive.

Putting in; Getting out

What you put in creates what comes out. If you want to know what you’re putting in, look at what’s coming out.

Assume there is an area or two of your life in which you’d like to get a different result.  You know you need to put something else in, but you’re not sure what you need to change.

Sometimes it helps to come at this challenge from a different angle, so consider using different words:

Action   =   Doing

Thoughts   =   Having

Emotions   =   Being

In your experience, which comes first?  Do you do, in order to have, in order to be?

That’s the typical order for most people.  For instance:

  • You want a loving, intimate relationship.  Obviously, you’ve got to do – meet people, go on dates, get to know someone, make peace with the person you’re with.  Then you can have – a boy friend/girl friend/significant other.  And then you can be in a satisfying relationship.
  • You want wealth.  You can easily come up with a list of things to do – get the right degree, start investing, initiate a savings plan, market more effectively, etc.  These actions enable you to have – credentials, the right job, something to start investing with, a larger base.  Then you can be rich.
  • You want to be at the top of your game.  You review the actions of those who have gone before – study, practice, learn, network, perform, create a business plan.  Through hard work you can have – skills, finesse, contacts, a product.  And then you will be among the best.

This is the obvious, common sense, Western-culture way to approach anything you want to achieve.

For Better Results

The miracle way works in the opposite, counter-intuitive direction.

To make miracles, be first, then have, and leave doing for last.  For this radical approach to make sense, we have to redefine the terms just a bit.

Doing is about taking action; it’s also about partnering – especially with the universe.  Of course you must focus, learn, practice, implement, etc.  That’s your part.  To accept the universe as your partner, you must also welcome, attract, be willing, agree, appreciate, honor, etc.

Because we’re associating having with thoughts, let’s look at it as having the mental resources you want to possess:  knowledge, abilities, skills, qualities of character, attitudes, beliefs, insights, wisdom, etc. (Basically, what you might be able to take with you when you die.)

Being refers to being in your personal power, and that’s determined by your emotional state.  How you feel is how you are.  Whatever your emotional state, that emotion resonates throughout your entire being, and then it vibrates outward.  These outward vibrations affect everyone and everything they touch.  They are the power you generate, just as the sun generates the power of heat and light.

Now let’s put this in the context of real life, using the above examples.

If you want a loving, intimate relationship.

  • Identify what kind of person do you want to be in this relationship – loving, generous, kind, happy, considerate, neat,  adventurous.  (It might help to look at what kind of person you were in past relationships and review how that worked for you.)
  • What you want to have may include:  attitudes, such as patience, good sense of humor, confidence, compassion; skills and abilities, such as communication, tenderness, better organization, scuba-diving; beliefs, such as that you are loving and lovable?
  • Lastly, what can you do to further the above?  Practice, put yourself out there, stop arguing, release fear, go dancing, buy gear. laugh more, believe it’s possible?  Receive?  Welcome?

If you want wealth/abundance.  Ask yourself the same questions:

  • Determine the kind of person you want to be: confident, generous, willing, open, aggressive, optimistic?
  • What you want to have may include:  attitudes, such as an expansive outlook, honesty, generosity, attentiveness; skills, such as financial knowledge, market acumen, better proficiency in your field; and what you need to believe, such as money is your friend, or money is easy, or you are aligned with prosperity.
  • Finally, what can you do to further the above?  Study, practice, bless your work, network?  Receive?  Appreciate?  Attract?

If you want to be at the top of your game.

  • What kind of person will you have to be? Confident, respectful, determined, productive, willing, optimistic, humble?
  • What attitudes will it serve you to have? Serenity, tenacity, respect, excellence?  Wisdom?  What skills will you have to acquire?  Subject knowledge, proficiency, insight?  What belief will serve you?  That your abilities are a divine gift?
  • What can you do to further the above?  Study, practice, perform, write, invite challenges, give it away?  Welcome?  Nurture?

Put it on Paper

Take a piece of paper, and write your intention statement across the top. (See Living With Intention) Take a minute to feel that intention.  Imagine it as real, as a done deal, as manifested in your life.

Draw a grid with three columns and three rows below your intention statement.  Label the columns Be, Have, Do.  Label the Rows Today, This Week, This Month.  Because you’re probably in the habit of thinking of what to do first, I suggest you start with the far right column – Do – and work your way left.

The first row of the worksheet is labeled Today.  In the Do square at the far right, identify what you can to today to further your intention.

An intention I’m working on currently is:  With enthusiasm and gratitude I welcome and receive money in a steady, abundant flow.  I love money and it loves me.

I filled in the Do-Today square of my grid with:

  • Blog
  • Welcome 3 new clients.
  • Personally invite people into my manifestation workshop
  • Refuse my habitual distractions

In the Have-Today square, I wrote:

  • Peace
  • Wisdom
  • Love
  • Enthusiasm
  • Money
  • Clients
  • Greater sense of purpose

In the Be-Today square, I’ve identified:

  • Serene
  • Confident
  • Attentive
  • Spiritually magnetic
  • Willing
  • Enthusiastic
  • Happy

Clearly, blogging is a physical function – a do.  My part is to sit at my computer, think, compose, post.  I partner with the universe by inviting wisdom and insight. (Also by inviting clients and students.)

In order to welcome, invite, attract, and serve, I must have peace. Having peace about money right now is a bit challenging because my bank account is pretty slim, but just performing this exercise brought a surprising level of serenity.  Much of having, as I wrote last week, is just getting out of your own way.

Which brings me to being.  Being serene helps me have peace.  Being willing and receptive opens the door so abundance can come into my life.  Being attentive helps me have focus, so I can do the next thing that comes up for me to do – receive.

In coming up with your program, I advise starting at the right and working left.  When you want to implement your program, I encourage you to start at the left and work right.  Remember, the only time frame for implementation is today.

Now consider the coming week.  When you expand your time horizon just that much, what changes?  Again, think from right to left; implement from left to right.

Here’s my program for the week:

Be:

  • Confident
  • Serene
  • Attentive
  • Generous
  • Conscientious
  • Happy

Have:

  • Commitment
  • Consistency
  • Focus
  • Love
  • Enthusiasm
  • Wisdom
  • Confidence
  • Money

Do:

  • Post blog
  • Welcome 6 new clients
  • Receive students in the new manifestation workshops.
  • Attract enough money to pay my rent.

When I’m looking at seven days rather than one, I can come up with more things to do. To get it all done, I’m going to consciously have more going on within me.  Which means I have to be at a higher level of my personal power.

Now, project forward for one month.  What can you do during the next thirty days to further your intention?  In order to accomplish all that, what qualities will you choose to have (adopt, improve, be open to, focus on)?  And what emotions (mode of power) will you generate, operate from, be?

Here is my plan for the coming month:

Be:

  • Serene
  • Happy
  • Enthusiastic
  • Generous
  • Sure
  • Open
  • One
  • Productive

Have:

  • Wisdom
  • Receptiveness
  • Willingness
  • Creativity
  • Empathy
  • Focus
  • Abundance

Do:

  • Organize thinking for next book.
  • Work with 15 clients per week.
  • Post weekly blogs.
  • Open the floodgates of abundance.

Once you’ve aligned your actions, thoughts, and emotions on paper, begin by letting the emotions expand within you, then focus your thoughts, and finally, act accordingly.

In past blogs I’ve made the point that what is up to you, while how is up to the universe.  Unifying your life forces, however, is as aspect of how that belongs to you.  Only you can choose how you will feel, how you will think, and how you will act.  Only you can decide who you will be, what you will have, and what you will do.

(Note: I wrote and published this article in 2009.  I am happy to report my prosperity intention is smoothly and delightfully coming to fruition.)

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Pacifying Your Objections

Sunday, December 19th, 2010

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 results.  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.

For one-on-one coaching to create a new reality, please email me directly:  kathy@kathyjacobson.com

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Clarify Your Intention

Sunday, December 5th, 2010

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.

I provide one-on-one empowerment coaching.   Feel free to contact me personally by emailing me directly:  kathy@kathyjacobson.com

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

(N)Ever Surrender

Sunday, October 17th, 2010

I first encountered the concept of surrender in a manifestation class many years ago, and it made no sense to me.  Even though I understood the idea, (intellectually, at least) of surrendering one’s struggles to God, this was a manifestation class.  We were talking about choosing and creating and attracting, and I didn’t see what I was supposed to surrender.  I could see quite clearly various aspects and behaviors I could adopt – but surrender?

Well, during the years since then, I’ve come to realize surrendering is relative.  There are things to ever surrender, and there are things to never surrender.  Today I’m going to put some of them into context with each other.

Personal Power and Guarantee

In life, there can be no guarantees, and yet our culture seems to demand them.  Wherever we see danger, we look for protection.  Everywhere we look we see rules, regulations, safety features, alarm systems, guard rails, insurance policies, fences and armies, all devised to save us from harm.  But if you demand security from others – from the government, from parents, from the legal system, from social custom, from an employer – you are basically saying, “My well-being is your responsibility, not mine.”

Of course, it can be very comforting to place that responsibility in someone else’s lap.  Then, if anything goes wrong, you have someone else to blame, maybe someone to turn to for compensation.  However, when you cede responsibility, you also cede personal power.

To avoid surrendering your personal power, surrender your need for a guarantee.  Or, conversely, when you retain and strengthen your personal power, you release your need for a guarantee.

Every human being has within them the potential for unlimited personal power, the potential to become the creators of their own lives.  (Although, we’re not all born into equally conducive environments.  You, for instance, have more freedom to access your power than a starving mother in the Sudan.)   You have within you the powers of peace, love, joy, awe, delight, optimism and authenticity.  When you cultivate these aspects of your personal power, when you trust them and use them to create your life, you create your own well-being and your own security.  Never surrender your personal power; always surrender the need for a guarantee.

Discernment and Judgment

In our lexicon, judgment has two meanings.  In one sense, it has an objective meaning with clear distinctions – something is right or wrong, legal or illegal, pure or sinful.  In another sense, it’s subjective and relies on perception, encompassing the full range of from bad to good.  Perception, of course, is relative to present circumstances, past experiences, embedded beliefs, future expectations, etc.  For instance, snowy weather might be “terrible” to a commuter and “terrific” to a skier.  A beautiful chocolate torte might be “fabulous” to a connoisseur and “obscene” to an ascetic.

In both the objective and the subjective sense, judgment generates struggle.  Once you judge something “good” or “bad”, you impose limitations, and limitations induce conflict.  Let’s look at some every-day situations to see how this unfolds.

  • You have a co-worker who dominates meetings with rambling monologs.  You judge this associate to be annoying, or stupid, or a pain-in-the-neck.  As soon as she starts talking, your resentment kicks in and you tune out.  When you stop caring about what she has to say, you also stop seeing than anything good can come out of the meeting.
  • You and your brother are on opposite sides of the political spectrum.  You’re “right” and he’s wr—oops, “left.”   You wish he’d open his eyes to the facts, and he acts like you’re the one who’s stupid.  You can’t even talk to each other any more without calling each other names.
  • You’ve been a procrastinator all your life.  At various times you’ve judged this as “lazy,” “free-spirited,” “rebellious,” or “insecure.”  By now, you’ve given up trying to understand it, you just know it’s an insufficiency.  You hate it in yourself, it causes you stress, but you’ve pretty much concluded there’s nothing you can do about it.

Judgment increases stress and decreases possibilities.  So, what if you surrendered judgment?  What if you simply let go of any need to see things as right/wrong, good/bad/ full/empty, in/out?  What would you have left?  Discernment.

When you surrender judgment, you surrender limitation and conflict.  When you lay claim to discernment, you open yourself to possibilities and cooperation.  Let’s look at the above situations and see the difference.

  • Where judgment translates into annoyance at the rambling co-worker, discernment stays focused on the purpose of the meeting.  Discernment can separate contribution from distraction and look for the win-win.  Discernment can tease out what’s going on beneath the surface and bring benefit into the open.
  • Where judgment erects fences, discernment finds common ground.  Discernment asks questions instead of labeling and dividing.
  • A personal strength is often the other end of a continuum of a trait that’s been labeled a flaw or weakness.  “Procrastinators” may be at their most creative while they’re delaying.  A “bad memory” may be the gateway to greater depths of understanding.  Being “too cautious” may be an assessment process, the weighing of options to find a wiser approach.

Never surrender your discernment; always surrender the need to impose judgment.

Choice and Victim-ness

Victims don’t have options.  Or at least they believe they don’t.  If you believe you have no choice in some area of your life, in that area you have surrendered your free will.  The moment you surrender free will, you become a victim.

Choice exists in every situation, in every realm, under every circumstance.  Sometimes the circumstances may seem impossible, such as a genetic condition, or the situation of your birth, or the state of the economy, or an earlier choice than now feels binding and irredeemable.  Every day, either consciously or subconsciously, you say “yes” or “no” to that situation.  If you say “yes,” you agree to be a victim and surrender the pursuit of other possibilities.  If you say, “no,” you start looking for further options, hidden opportunities, unrecognized solutions.

Never surrender your freedom of choice; always relinquish the ties that bind you to victim-ness.

Enjoyment and Attachment

Attachment is a binding.  You become bound up with something, glued to it, and now you carry it around with you wherever you go.  You might be attached to another person, a principle, a belief, a goal, your houses, an animals, a cause, your friends, your enemies, a car, a habit, a perception, an outcome, etc.  Any separation from the object (or effort to separate) causes you anxiety and/or pain.

Enjoyment, by comparison, has no strings.  With enjoyment, you’re free to stay or leave – and so is whatever you’ve become attached to.

Emotions are key components of both attachment and enjoyment.  The difference is in the kind of emotion you’re applying, and what you expect as a result.  The emotions of attachment always include an element of desperation – as if without the object of your attachment you will be less in some way.  Such emotions include fear, desire, hatred, anxiety, concern, insecurity, rigidity, guilt, grief, certainty, etc.  The emotions of enjoyment are always expansive:  affection, openness, contentment, delight, trust, fun, confidence, etc.

Never surrender your enjoyment (of life, of others, of today, or the hidden treasures in challenging situations); always surrender your attachment to the things and circumstances of your life that are not yours to control.

Self and Ego

By definition, ego is simply another name for self.  By connotation, however, it carries all kinds of burden.  It’s used as a stand-in for pride, self-importance, conceit, vanity, arrogance, etc.  In that guise, it becomes the enemy of the self, almost the anti-self.

The best description of ego in this sense came from a little book on Hindu philosophy I read a decade or so ago.  Ego is when you believe something about yourself and it becomes important to you that others see you the same way.  Any trait or feature of yourself applies here – beauty, intelligence, extroversion, spirituality, productivity; irresponsibility, brashness, rebellion, superiority.

To surrender ego without surrendering yourself, recognize all the true and precious aspects of you.  Let go of any need for others to see you in any certain way.

Strength and Guilt

Guilt drains away strength.  Guilt appears when you perceive you acted wrongly.  Perhaps you said the wrong thing, or lost an opportunity, or hurt someone, or make a bad choice, or over-reacted, or committed a sin, or didn’t exercise, or broke your diet, or spent too much money, etc., etc., etc.  You believe yourself in error (or worse).  In a case against yourself, you decide the verdict first and then you act as the prosecutor, the judge and the jury.  You refuse to call any witnesses in your own behalf.  And then you sentence yourself, and you surrender to some self-imposed punishment.  You abandon any good feelings toward yourself, such as kindness, or compassion, or trust, or gentleness, or joy, or any other indicator of inner strength – because you don’t deserve them.

And when you surrender your strength, you also relinquish any power you have to make amends, to change, to learn, to improve, to recoup, to compensate, to rebuild.

Never surrender your strength.  See it as the way to identify your contribution to the events and circumstances of your life.  See it as a form of divine guidance, steering you through the shoals of challenge.  Instead, surrender  all pangs of guilt that eat at you from the inside, gnawing at both your mind and your heart.

Neutrality and Defensiveness

I’m not sure whether the old saying, “The best defense is a good offense,” was first applied to football or to war.  Not being a fan of either, I’m also not sure how well it works in either case.  I do know it’s often applied in interpersonal relationships, and in those situations it’s never effective.

In relationships, defensiveness is deadly.  It will eventually destroy all companionship, respect, love, trust, ease, enjoyment, and peace.  All the attitudes I’ve suggested in this article for surrender (and many others) usually result in defensiveness.  You will become defensive if you expect a guarantee, if you judge yourself or the other person, if you’re prone to victim-ness, if you’re attached to something that matters more than the relationship, if you have an ego need, if you feel guilty.

The best cure for defensiveness is to surrender it.  To become neutral.

When you are neutral, you can see the other person’s point of view, you can look for more options, more possibilities become visible, you plug up the holes from which you leak personal power, and you can discover your strengths.

One thing that is true:  when you stop being defensive, you also stop being offensive.

The What and The How

A true statement of surrender is, “Let go, and let God.”  Stop trying to control all the little details, and trust The Infinite.

But what is God’s job, and what is your job?  Choice is always your job.  God cannot choose for you.  Free will is more than a right, it’s an obligation.  A responsibility.  When you surrender choice, you surrender will, and without will all that remains is chaos.

What you want is up to you.  Never surrender your intention, your ability to choose.  Never surrender your ability to see options, to imagine the possible.  Never surrender your confidence that you can create the life you want.

Always surrender the how. You don’t have to be able to see every step of the way between where you are now and where you want to go.  How is not up to you.  Trying to control how, constricts possible solutions and limits potential miracles.

Good personal life coaching helps you explore possibilities and gain more effective tools.  For a free introductory coaching session, write me at:  kathy@kathyjacobson.com

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Posted in Beliefs, Calmness, Free will, Making Miracles, Possibilities, The Law of Attraction, manifestation | 1 Comment »

Attraction and Detraction

Saturday, July 24th, 2010

(If you would like more information about personal life coaching, or would like a free introductory session, please contact me:  kathy@kathyjacobson.com)

Perhaps you’ve heard of the Law of Attraction.  It’s been going around for a long while, with such catch phrases as:  “Thought precedes action.”  “You are what you think about.”  “Anything the human mind can perceive it can achieve.”

Almost everything I’ve ever read about this law considers thoughts to be the magnetic force.  The more focused the thought, the more magnetic power it has.  If you think about money (or health, or love, or happiness), and you give it your full attention, it will come to you.

Philosophically, I accept this principle.  But in my experience, thoughts are only a part of the power.  Actions and emotions are equally necessary.  You must bring thoughts, actions and emotions into congruence, and any misalignment can skew the result.

Aligning the Law of Attraction

Say, for instance, you want to loose weight.  You know the key actions – eat better and exercise more.  In addition to acting appropriately to your goal, you decide to think yourself thin.  So you put together an affirmation, “I am thin, healthy and at my ideal weight.”  And you repeat this affirmation all the time:  when you’re building a healthy salad for lunch, when you’re jogging on the treadmill, when you’re walking toward the mall from the far distant corner of the parking lot, when you’re taking a shower.

So far, so good.  You’re solid with two pieces of the formula – but your ideal weight stays stubbornly out of reach.  Time to bring in supporting emotions.  Love is probably the strongest healing energy, so you decide to love your body, love your thinness, love yourself as a thin person.  You also decide to enthusiastically enjoy being your ideal weight.  With this inclusion of supporting emotional energy, you might find the weight peeling away.

Or you might not.  And if not, you’re blocking it.  The block might be an action – perhaps you’re still taking in more calories than you’re burning.  It might be an emotion – perhaps you’re impatient, investing in expectation, comparing yourself to others, or holding some other kind of judgment.  Or it might be a thought.  Affirmations in and of themselves are not magic.  Just repeating what you want to be might not get you where you want to go.  If you carry a belief that contradicts what you want, you may be investing as much in the Law of Detraction as in the Law of Attraction.

Beliefs are extremely powerful.  They’re like fences, like boxes.  They hold you in, they limit your progress, they establish boundaries beyond which you cannot go.  To break past them, you must dismantle them.

An exercise I find both helpful and powerful is to write out your intention statement or affirmation, use the word “but” as a conjunction, and create a compound sentence with whatever comes up after the “but.”  For example, “I am thin, healthy and at my ideal weight, but keeping weight off has always been a struggle for me.”  Repeat at least ten times, letting other fears, objections, past experiences, and beliefs come to the surface:  “I am thin, healthy and at my ideal weight, but I can’t resist dessert.”  “I am thin, healthy and at my ideal weight, but when I was young and tiny I felt insignificant.”  “I am thin, healthy and at my ideal weight, but it won’t last.”

Once you have your list of “buts,” sort them and start to dissolve them.  Most such barriers fall into one of three categories.

  • Some reflect the present, your current situation.  Reframe those and use new affirmations to embed a new belief in your subconscious:  “I am thin, healthy and at my ideal weight, and thin is my new reality.  I am and I will be.”  “I am thin, healthy and at my ideal weight, and I easily resist dessert – even Key Lime Pie.”
  • Some are rooted in the past, old experiences or deeply-rooted beliefs about yourself.  For those, explore the story that supports the belief:  Were you insignificant?  Was your thin stature the reason?  Use logic to help you disengage from a story that probably had no basis to begin with.  For increased power, extend love and compassion to the child or adolescent you used to be, who adopted those beliefs.  Again, a new affirmation can strengthen your revised thinking.  “I am thin, healthy and at my ideal weight, and I add significant value in every situation.”
  • Some project into the future.  For those, identify the strongest emotional energy that will help you create the future to your liking.  Any partner or creator emotions will support and sustain future results.  Consider the creative power of something such as, “With delight and trust, I celebrate my idea weight every day.

Recognizing the time zone of your “buts” will help you identify the most effective ways to dissolve them.

The above suggestions are starting points.  Sometimes the first removal exercises work like magic.  Sometimes, however, other forces interfere with The Law of Attraction at a deeper level.

The Law of Detraction

The comparison of The Law of Attraction with magnetism works beautifully if you think of your desire as a magnet and what you want as iron filings.  Just increase the intensity of your desire, and you will pull more “filings” toward you.  But if what you want is another “magnet” you’ll run into the properties of polarization.

Consider magnets:  Each has a positive and a negative pole.  The only way two can connect is through opposite poles.  If they both present the same polarity, they repel each other.

In metaphysical terms this could be called The Law of Detraction:  Misaligned energies repel each other.  You have to be appropriately aligned with what you want in order to attract it.  Otherwise, your energy and the energy of what you want repel each other.  What you want must be as eager to connect with you as you are eager to connect with it.

It’s been my observation that in most cases what you want wants you.  (When what you want is human, however, that person brings a full range of human complexities into the equation so attraction is also more complex.)  If you want money, money wants you.  If you want health, health wants you.  If you want peace, peace wants you.  Very simple.

If you aren’t attracting what you want, if it isn’t responding eagerly and positively to your “attraction,” you can safely assume something is out of alignment.  Since you are the chooser, since you are the person with free agency, you alone have the potential to find the misalignment and repair in.

The Law of Detraction kicks into action any time you operate from Interpreter mode.  Every judgmental emotion interferes with attraction.  Every thought, belief, assumption, expectation or story that mires you in struggle or limitation disrupts the polarity of your energy.  Every action that doesn’t support what you want deters the positive action you desire.  This detraction  occurs whether you are the generator of the disruptive energy, or whether you assign the interference to your intention.

For example, Shelley* wanted to switch jobs to one that’s truer for her.  She set the following intention:  “With enthusiasm and joy, I relish my new job.  What I bring to my work is accepted and respected by others.”  She practiced generating feelings of enthusiasm and joy from within.  She’d worked through layers of uncertainty about the economy and her competition and her own ability to perform at higher levels.  She sent out a bunch of resumes and responded to some ads, and for weeks nothing moved.  One day, in frustration, she said, “What more can I do?  Maybe my ideal job doesn’t exist.”

I suggested we take a closer look at her perception of what was going on.  Did the job not exist?  Or did she believe, it didn’t exist?  She realized she’d never worked at a job she truly enjoyed.  She always made do, took whatever came along, settled.  I asked her to consider whether she would emit different energy if she unconditionally believed this idea job existed –  instead of believing it didn’t.  Since she had done her own inner work on this (when she affirmed enthusiasm and joy, it was real), I invited her to shift the focus of her intention statement from her own energy to the energy of the job:  “My idea job exists and it wants me.  It welcomes me, and we do beautiful work together.”  Within a week she had an interview, and a week later she had a job offer.

Here’s a set of simple questions to assess whether you’ve got Attraction or Detraction most at work with one of your intentions:

  • Are you getting what you want?  (Is your intention clearly stated?  It is true for you?)
  • Have you aligned your own thoughts, actions and emotions and thereby dismantled any barriers?
  • Are you giving your intention sufficient attention by reinforcing your aligned thoughts, actions and emotions?  (In other words, are you sticking with the program?)

If you answer yes to these three questions and what you want is still not opening up for you, take a serious look at your energetic relationship with what you want:

  • Accept that the object of your intention wants you as much as you want it.
  • Convey to the object of your intention that you want to be equal partners.
  • Ask it what it wants from you.
  • Do your best to provide what it wants.
  • Receive its best in return.

Edward* is doing this with his violin.  To Edward, the first two steps were already givens.  Then he asked his violin what it wanted from him, and it suddenly occurred to him to disregard his chin rest.  So he did, and removing that physical barrier between his body and the violin immediately changed his relationship with his instrument.  Since then he’s connecting with his violin more as a partner than a possession, and his musicianship has moved to a whole new level.

When you accept what you want as a partner at this energetic level, I suspect you will experience The Law of Attraction in surprising new ways.
*  Not their real names

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Posted in Making Miracles, The Law of Attraction, Uncategorized, intentions | 4 Comments »

Love Heals

Sunday, June 13th, 2010

Imagine someone with a broken leg.  That person goes to the doctor who x-rays, sets the bone, immobilizes it, provides instructions for how best to assist recovery, and sends the person home to heal.

Imagine a married couple who fight repeatedly about the same issue (kids, money, personal habits, politics, food).  They go to a relationship counselor who listens, gives feedback, introduces them to better communication skills, and sends them home to heal.

Both situations have an equal potential for full recovery.

Of course, it depends on whether the “patients” involved actually follow the advice of the “healers.”  If the person with the broken leg discards the brace or puts too much weight on the injury too soon, recovery will be compromised.  If the couple with conflict continue to blame each other, or hold grudges or insist on having the last word, they will stay mired in unhappiness.  It’s pretty easy to see that action matters.  Healing is seriously compromised if the “patient” doesn’t obey the principles of recovery,

Action, however is only one kind of energy involved in healing, regardless of the nature of the wound.  The patient must also invest thought energy.  Generally thought energy takes the form of believing healing is possible.

In the case of the broken leg, our entire culture recognizes bones heal, so accepting that a particular break will mend seems a no-brainer.  However, there are always exceptions to the rule.  Some people believe they don’t heal naturally.  A physical condition, such as a calcium deficiency, might provide a basis for that belief; often such beliefs grow from emotions.  Emotion-based beliefs can retard or obstruct healing the way a placebo can aid it.

The couple who argues have a more complex problem.  Their issue of contention may be a way of ignoring or evading the true wound.  For instance, they might argue over money without realizing the deeper rift is that they don’t respect each other.  They might believe – at least in principle – they can learn to communicate and compromise about money.  That belief will go a long way to supporting any new actions they adopt.  But if they don’t believe the other person is worthy of respect, their efforts with money will not heal the relationship.

Ultimately, the most important energy governing any healing is emotion.  Emotion will support and govern beliefs, or it will limit them.  Emotion will support and sustain actions, or it will impair them.  Even in something as straight-forward and well-treated as a broken leg, emotion can speed the healing process or retard it.

The key to understanding the power of emotions in healing is simple:

Healing requires energy.

Emotions are energy.

Energy is emotion.

I believe love has the strongest healing power of all emotions.  I believe any wound can be healed by love.

Healing can occur in a number of different ways, depending on the ailment or affliction.  For instance, the healing of a misunderstanding might come from finding common ground; the healing of cancer might come by reducing the tumor; the healing of poverty might come from getting a new job, the healing of loneliness might come from giving companionship to someone else.

Sometimes love is an obvious force in such healings; more often its energy is overlooked.

Consider these three ways healing can occur:

  • Recovery.  The situation returns to its original form.
  • Reconciliation.   Negative energy is released from an adversity.
  • Transcendence.  A new reality emerges.

Let’s look at each one and note the influence of emotional energy.

Recovery

This might be the way of healing we’re most familiar with.  Something is injured, the injury mends.  We tend to let our bodies take care of a common cold, a cut finger, a stubbed toe.  We tend to let time take care of a minor rift or a hurt feeling.  We tend to spread major expenses out over time as a means of healing a lack of funds.  We tend to let time and/or nature heal the discomforts caused by weather – the rained-out party or the August heat wave.  Sometimes we apply some external assistance – the cold remedy, the band-aid, the credit card, the snow shovel, the shared meal.  Eventually the situation returns to normal.

Because such minor woes are so easily mended, it’s easy to overlook the impact of emotional energy on the recovery.

Have you ever had a common cold that lingered despite your dedicated application of cold remedies?  Have you ever disagreed with someone you normally get along with, but that particular disagreement seemed to resist resolution?  Have you ever been surrounded by friends and family and still ached with loneliness?  Have you incurred a debt, made regular payments, and made little headway in paying it off?

Chances are, you were immersed in one of the INTERPRETER Mode emotions:  worry, frustration, guilt, boredom, disappointment, etc.  (Check the Emotions List for the full range of possible culprits)  These emotions create struggle, increase difficulty, burden the body, resist healing.  Perhaps you’re in one of these situations right now.

You can expedite recovery by a simple four-step process:

  1. Recognize and name the impeding emotion.
  2. Acknowledge you have a choice when it comes to holding onto that emotion or letting go of it.
  3. Choose to let it go.
  4. Move to the next Mode of Mastery.  Since you are probably in INTERPRETER mode, move to OBSERVER mode.

OBSERVER mode emotions are neutral, free of negative energy and judgment.  When you abide in the energy of hope, humor, patience, warmth, wonder, or flexibility, you move from the difficult to the possible.  Your thoughts change from misdirected to open; you feel capable instead of burdened.

Reconciliation

In contrast to the normal, every-day kinds of ailments referred to above, some situations appear permanent.  Birth defects, the destruction caused by a natural disaster, the loss of a job, cultural hatreds, death, etc.

Occasionally we can envision a means for mediating the situation – breakthroughs in medicine, community or national cooperation in restoration, retraining or a career change, peace summits, grief counseling, etc.

The degree to which any of these situations becomes reconcilable depends on the emotional energy applied to them, and PARTNER energy is key.

When you evoke and employ such PARTNER emotions as cheerfulness, courage, gratitude, openness or confidence, the situation ceases to be an adversity.  The physical reality may not have changed, but you experience new willingness, eagerness, and power.  You can trust your intuition as an inner guide.  You welcome the opportunities for growth, for experience, for greater knowledge, and for service.

Transcendence

Transcendence is the highest degree of healing, the realm in which miracles occur.  It’s important to remember miracles always obey natural law, that everything in the universe conforms to the laws of the universe.

Consider a conflict between two factions that has raged for years (or centuries).  It’s not hard to see that love might be the only mechanism by which the two sides could transcend their differences.  The process of applying love would not be mysterious.  First they would have to set aside feelings of hatred, resentment, and anger.  They would have to release any attachment to the old stories, to the long-held myths, to their convictions of the sins of their enemies and of their own rightness.  They would have to release judgment and blame and move to neutrality.  Once they achieved calm, they could discover commonalities and ways to partner with each other.  (Anthropologists have observed that trade and intermarriage work wonders.)  Understanding often leads to respect, and from respect it’s an easy step to love.

The growth process from helplessness to power always follows the same path: from suffering to struggle to calm to opportunity to best good.  A few examples of these emotional transitions:

  • From fear to apprehension to hope to trust to love.
  • From loneliness to yearning to patience to anticipation to love.
  • From resentment to bitterness to humility to recognition to love.
  • From woe to grief to sadness to empathy to love.

(Of course, other emotions besides love put you in CREATOR mode, but today I’m specifically talking about the power of love.  Also, sometimes it takes more than one step to progress through interpreter mode.  For example, you may have to go from fear to hostility to apprehension to irritation before you can reach hope.)

Love heals.  When it heals through transcendence, a new reality emerges.

Consider the story of someone who recovers from cancer.  Perhaps for months the doctors do their best with little success, then one day the tumor is “miraculously” gone.  They may speculate on how healing occurred, but there is no testable scientific explanation – just here today, gone tomorrow.

The energy central to such a “miracle” will be love.  It might result from love of self, love of the body, love of life, love of god.  It might result from reconciling a conflict with someone or something.  It might be the progression from anger to regret to awareness to acceptance to love.

The new reality will expand far beyond renewed health.  It will always include a new version of an old story, new attitudes towards other people, and/or approaching familiar situations in new ways.  When you transcend through the healing power of love, you are freed from old beliefs, old paradigms, old restriction.  You feel like a new person.

Can you use love to heal someone else?  Of course.  The power of love is unlimited.  But healing cannot occur without the other person’s permission and their willingness to be healed.

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Posted in Creator Mode, Healing, Heart Power, Making Miracles | Comments Off

Miracles Follow Energy

Sunday, May 16th, 2010

I believe in a self-consistent universe, governed by physical law. Even though we may not know the laws involved, miracles (or whatever name you use to describe amazing and unexplainable events) must conform to natural processes. Miracles, therefore, will follow patterns. So while I make absolutely no claims about how miracles occur, I have noticed a conforming characteristic in all the miracles I’ve witnessed. They follow energy. Human energy. And human energy exhibits through action, through thought, and through emotion.

In past articles, I’ve explored the energy of emotion extensively. Today I’d like to share some thoughts on the energy of action and how it interacts with the energy of emotion.

You may recall my model called The Diamond of Mastery. You can view it again at:
http://kathyjacobson.com/blogs

This model identifies five levels of personal power, each with identifying characteristics and attributes. When you understand the attributes of the different modes, you can recognize in your own emotions what a given energy will bring into your life.

Here’s a capsulated version of some of the attributes includes Mode – Hallmark – Potential – and the resulting creation:

Victim mode, Hallmark of Helplessness – Potential of Impossible – Creates Pain & Suffering.

Interpreter mode, Hallmark of Judgment – Potential of Difficult – Creates Struggle.

Observer mode, Hallmark of Neutrality – Potential of Possible – Creates Calm.

Partner mode, Hallmark of Cooperation – Potential of Probably – Creates Opportunity.

Creator mode, Hallmark of Oneness – Potential of Inevitable – Creates Best Good.

Common sense says emotion alone won’t produce results. You can’t wish something into existence. A novel or a song won’t get written without putting words or notes together. A house won’t get built without materials, tools and elbow grease. A business doesn’t become profitable without envisioning, planning, organizing, managing, and doing.

Likewise, none of these things will happen without the emotional energy to motivate the physical energy. It’s fairly easy to conclude miraculous results are fueled by love, enthusiasm, joy and confidence – especially when those who achieve only moderate results seem to experience higher levels of frustration, worry, doubt, conflict, and other judging emotions. If an effort never quite gets off the ground, some detrimental emotions, such as fear, anxiety, vexation, or disappointment is probably embedded within it. Less-obvious judgments, such as greed, pride, devotion, ambition, or the need for validation, will also impede the miracle.

It’s all a matter of cause and effect, and since actions and emotions obviously influence each other, perhaps the question isn’t where or how the process begins, but how or where to break it. If you’re not getting the results you want, something’s got to change. So let’s look at changing behavior.

Inevitable Progression

Imagine a hypothetical situation: you’re working on a project and things are going well. You know the goal, you’re clear about the deliverables, you have the appropriate skills and experience, and you’re meeting the benchmarks. Then someone steps in and muddies the goal, or challenges the deliverables. Perhaps this person has the authority to mess things up but doesn’t have the vision or the background to help things along.

How do you react? What do you do? How do you behave?

Do you rant? Storm the tormentor’s castle? Sulk? Take it out on someone else? Sabotage the project? Quit? Suffer in silence? Go to a competitor? Complain? Criticize? Whine? Laugh it off?

However you react, what you do produces a result. For example, if you rant, your angry energy attacks everyone within earshot. And then what happens? They might catch your anger and pass anger on to someone else, and pretty soon anger’s going around like the flu. One of the people who catches your anger might throw it back at you, and the whole thing escalates.

Or what if you direct your anger toward the “perpetrator” and go on the attack. You march into his office with your objections, your resentment, your ultimatums, putting him on the defensive. And then what happens? You’re likely to become the fatality.

Each of the behaviors I cited as possibilities will follow the same pattern:

Behavior: you sulk. Effect: you withdraw from everyone and stop communicating; you continue to suffer. Result: people stop trusting you.

Behavior: you take it out on someone else. Effect: innocent parties are hurt; you continue to suffer. Result: you damage your relationships with others.

Behavior: you sabotage the project. Effect: the project fails; you continue to suffer. Result: you exact some payback, but others are hurt.

Behavior: you quit. Effect: you lose any chance of winning; someone else might save the day; you continue to suffer. Result: you damage your reputation.

You get the picture. Behavior leads to effect leads to result. So where do emotions come in? Do you react in response to your emotions? Or do you react first then generate emotion(s) to support your behavior?

In my own life I’ve observed it can happen either way. I can choose to be happy and evoke feelings of well-being and eagerness, and from that emotional space I breeze through any challenge. Or I engage in a behavior and that behavior influences my emotions. For instance, when I go hiking, I inevitably come back in a state of exuberance and delight. Or, because I really like crossword puzzles, I can let one successful solution lead me into another puzzle until I’m feeling tired and bored. (I only recently realized the cause-and-effect of this one.) In either case, my behavior generates my mood.

Whether the emotion or the behavior comes first, the pattern of behavior-effect-result will comply with the mode of power from which you’re operating.

Let’s take the above example and imagine you respond from PARTNER mode instead of INTERPRETER. The scenario’s the same – same project, same plan, same progress, and same interference. But you engage in cooperative behavior.

Will you improve communications? Will you find a new approach? Will you gather supportive information? Will you look for mediation? Will you shift your focus to something else? Will you respect the processes of other people? Any action you chose will have an effect and a result.

Behavior: you improve communications. Effect: better information calms anxiety all around. Result: Objections are resolved; possibilities are expanded.

Behavior: you look for a new approach. Effect: you work around the objections. Result: the project proceeds.

Behavior: you gather and present supportive information. Effect: you become better informed, and so does the objector. Result: the project is better than before.

Behavior: you shift your focus (assuming it’s too late to do anything about the current project). Effect: you courageously carry on with your own life. Result: you discover new opportunities.

Mastering Action

Different behaviors can be identified with the different modes of power by the same characteristics that identify the emotions.

Since the hallmark of VICTIM mode is helplessness, any behavior generated from helplessness – whether offensive or defensive – can be recognized as an act of desperation. The potential focuseson limitation and impossibility: This or nothing; this is the only way out; this is the last resort. Such behaviors include war, suicide, vengeance, isolation, submission and oppression.

The hallmark of INTERPRETER mode is judgment, which creates struggle. Any time you engage in conflict, encounter difficulties or feel burdened, you are probably engaging in actions that compound difficulty. Behaviors such as argument, procrastination, intimidation, complaint, criticism, bullying, sabotage, scorning, etc. result it more of the same.

The hallmark of OBSERVER mode is neutrality. Any behavior that foregoes judgment also expands the range of possibilities. As soon as you become the observer through a behavior such as watching, verifying, gathering experimenting, or understanding, you open the door to a win-win situation.

The hallmark of PARTNER is cooperation and the result is synergy. When you choose to aid, respect, honor, laugh, celebrate, reassure, sympathize, communicate. etc, you become more productive, you find more enjoyment, your health improves – and you help bring the same benefits to others.

At the CREATOR level, your results are marked by oneness. You are attuned to yourself, to others, to your work, to infinite possibilities. Think of times when you’ve loved, enjoyed, excelled, served, played, rejoiced or mastered. Think of what came to you as a result. At this level, your every action, your every thought, your every emotion makes the world a better place. This level produces the energy that attracts miracles.

From Behavior to Results

Take a good, clear look at your results. What you’re getting is the result of the energy you’re expending. If you’re getting what you want, chances are both your emotional energy and your behavioral energy come from PARTNER or CREATOR mode. If you’re not getting what you want, your energy is probably coming from VICTIM or INTERPRETER MODE. Evoke PARTNER energy and you’ll get very satisfying results. Evoke CREATOR energy, and you’ll get extraordinary results. As a resource, I’ve posted a list of actions that belong to the five modes of Mastery on my blog.

So how do you move away from behaviors that reinforce helplessness or keep you in struggle? Here’s a very simple plan of action:

1. Become aware. Notice your behavior.
2. Acknowledge the behavior and name it.
3. Claim the behavior. You chose it; nobody made you do it.
4. Choose something else. This one’s pretty easy. Once you recognize you chose your current behavior, your subconscious mind accepts your power to choose, and your ability to choose expands.

You will find that being mindful of your actions and the results of those actions takes your life to the next level – whatever that means to you. If you want a miraculous life, operate from CREATOR mode.

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