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The What and Why of Personal Power

Sunday, January 22nd, 2012

In the movie, Shrek, our hero compares being an ogre to an onion because they both have layers. This is not a new analogy; many have made the same comparison to the human personality.

As you’ve probably observed, being yourself a human, human nature is extremely complex and makes self-understanding particularly challenging. Even the most rigorous scholars and scientists have difficulty teasing apart the innate from the learned and separating nature from nurture.

Many systems for analysis and understanding have evolved throughout the ages, starting way back with the original horoscope. So now, in addition to astrology, we have the Enneagram, Myers-Briggs, Kiersey, IQ tests, skills surveys, and gene sequencing. But how does such an assortment of tools help us truly know ourselves? We can never fully differentiate what we were born with, what we were taught, what we’ve concluded, what’s influenced us, what we’ve internalized and what we’ve rebelled against.

Personally, I’m a Sagittarius, an INFP, a 5-Thinker, an Idealist, the oldest of nine children, a European-American, and a baby-boomer. Although such explorations have helped illuminate aspects of me I might not have noticed on my own, they haven’t help me be truer to myself. My observations, expectations and conclusions have all influenced the way I perceive myself. And then, what does my self-knowledge have to do with the way I access and utilize my personal power?

Self-Knowledge and Power

Here are three specific ways self-knowledge and personal power interact.

  • The better we know ourselves, the more wisdom we bring to our choices. Ultimately personal power has more to do with choice than knowledge – even self-knowledge.
  • All the complex layers and facets of us influence the way we access power, and in turn are affected by the power we access.  Consider some of your own layers:  genetics, up-bringing, circumstances, relationships, experiences, self-knowledge, choices, etc.
  • Running through all those layers and facets is that un-specified and un-measurable aspect of self we call The Soul – whatever it is we come into this life with, regardless of any and all physical influences.

Of course, there are more layers than that, and they are not discrete, they bleed into each other, feed on each other, influence each other, etc. And running through it all is that straight, broad constant, the soul, that connects the layers and pierces through them.

So we have our physical human-ness, and we have our soul-ness. Our soul-ness possesses unlimited access to infinite power. An important responsibility/opportunity of human-ness is to connect to our soul-ness and thus gain access to that deep inner power.

Okay. So What?

When I was writing and teaching fiction, I realized the importance of the question, “What’s in it for me?” Characters must be motivated on a very personal level. Readers must be given reasons to care about the characters. Writers must see the reasons for employing various techniques. Good writers make it all personal. Always.

This is equally true when it comes to personal power. Why bother? What’s the point? What’s the benefit? Will it change anything? What’s in it for me?

Consider the following benefits to putting forth the effort and doing the inner work:

  • You’ll be happier.
  • You’ll find inner peace.
  • You’ll manifest miracles.

I’m not going to expound on happiness and inner peace; I trust you already know what they mean to you personally. The concept of miracles, on the other hand, may have as many definitions as there are people.

I use it in a very broad, very non-religious way. I see miracles as extraordinary results, happening in unexpected ways. A miracle is a result you couldn’t make happen, probably couldn’t foresee, and certainly can’t control.

When I was young, I equated miracles with acts of God, with divine intervention. I was taught miracles depended on two factors: 1. Faith. 2. A special authority bestowed only on select individuals. As a female, I was never going to be eligible for that special authority, but I took faith to heart. I believed Jesus’ statement that anyone with faith the size of a mustard seed could move mountains, and I puzzled over how to attain that level of faith.

I still believe anyone can manifest miracles. And a mustard seed is probably a good illustration of the amount of energy it takes, because quantity isn’t nearly as important as quality.

Manifestation

So far in my articles I’ve been exploring aspects of personal power without posing the question: Power to do what?

Basically, we’re talking about the ability to transcend and the ability to create. I believe every human being possesses the potential for infinite power. Therefore, as a human being, this power exists within you.

While everyone possesses the potential for infinite power, access comes as human-ness connects with soul-ness. We gain access according to the way we experience and employ our emotions. As we’ve been observing in past newsletters, the emotions of the different modes produce different results. Now let’s look at the aspects of transcendence and creation.   (See my archived article The Power of Emotion and the graphic The Modes of Mastery Diamond.)

Victim Power

Victim Mode emotions tend to restrict power down to the weakest possible flow, but enough still leaks through to empower a declaration of No. That simple choice transcends helplessness and creates an opening for something other than more of the same. To say No more fear (or anger, or hate, or despair) will not immediately dispel the fear (or anger, or hate, or despair); it does open the space for something else. It does illuminate the path into the next level of personal power.

Interpreter Power

People operating from Interpreter Mode emotions know they are no longer helpless. Compared to the thin trickle of power available in Victim Mode, the stronger flow vastly widens the spectrum of possibilities. In spite of the continuing struggle, there is now sufficient power to transcend helplessness and to create action.

Observer Power

With Observer Mode comes a shift in the balance of power. Before, the emotions held the reins of power, now you become the master. This is a transitional state and transcendence has a circular quality. As you transcend judgment, you gain the ability to create a desired result. The more you observe, the less you judge, and the less you judge the more you can observe. This process moves you inexorably away from Interpreter and toward Partner.

Consider the following kinds of emotional energy and the results they produce:

Interpreter Mode:

  • Anxiety often results in illness
  • Certainty often results in rejection.
  • Self-pity often results in torment.
  • Distraction often results in delay.
  • Guilt often results in culpability.

Observer Mode:

  • Acceptance often results in health.
  • Curiosity often results in acknowledgment.
  • Compassion often results in self-recognition.
  • Amusement often results in focus.
  • Courage often results in authenticity.

As you can see, Observe Mode opens the door to vast creative potential. You move from the zone of possibilities into the zone of probabilities.

Partner Power

Partner Mode emotions empower you to transcend limitations, including: financial lack, physical impairments, career stagnation, insufficient education, inadequate tools, entangled relationships, failure, etc. You now have sufficient power to create abundance, health, success, friendships, contentment, vitality, etc.

One of my sisters has had more health challenges than any ten normal people, beginning with the discovery of a birth defect when she started to walk. She also has an amazingly cheerful outlook on life. The first medical intervention she endured was a year in a body cast as a toddler; since then there have been too many treatments and operations to count. When she was twelve and spending a summer in yet another body cast, she observed no one wanted to hang around a gloomy invalid. They would come to visit and stay to play if she was happy.

All her life, my sister has refused to find misfortune in her situation. She’s never complained, gotten defensive, pitied herself, or mourned a life she might have had. She’s created a beautiful family, a welcoming home, a wide circle of loyal friends, and myriad opportunities to serve and grow. One time a visiting neighbor commended her ability to overcome adversity, and my sister couldn’t figure out what her neighbor meant. Looking for clarification, she asked, “What adversity?”

Transcending does not necessarily mean eliminating. The “adversity” may continue; it has no power to inhibit or destroy. As Partner with all aspects of your life, you transcend in ways known only to yourself. What you create, however, will be visible to all.

Creator Power

When you ultimately move into Creater Mode, you gain access to the infinite wellspring of your divine power. I suspect you experience and employ Creator emotions in a number of areas of your life. Sometimes, with some people, in some situations, you experience love, happiness, peace, delight, etc. Sometimes you are stress-free, conflict-free, worry-free. Sometimes you experience that inner knowing that you are one with the universe. The no-upper-limits aspect of infinite means you can continue to expand in this mode forever and not exhaust the possibilities.

At this level you can transcend anything, and create anything. I personally believe at this level it’s all possible. In fact, I believe it’s impossible for the human mind to imagine beyond the realm of possibility. (Although, I have absolutely no evidence to support that belief.)

Manifestation is not magic. There are no designated formulas, no set rituals, no worship, no requirements for membership. There are, however, principles and practices. For the next series of aticles , I’ll be presenting what I know about manifesting miracles, about becoming the creator of your own life.

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Partner Power

Sunday, October 30th, 2011

All emotions are relational.  The relationships resulting from Victim Mode emotions are persecutor/victim, the relationships resulting from Interpreter Mode emotions are adversarial, and the relationships of emotions from Observer Mode are neutral.  When we move into Partner Mode, emotions form cooperative relationships.  You can identify a Partner Mode emotion by its cooperative nature.  Whenever you feel friendly, helpful or harmonious you are operating in partner mode.  Of course, because you are already a friendly, helpful person you have lots of experience with these emotions.  You know what they feel like – and you know their results.

For those times when you don’t feel at all friendly or helpful, when you find yourself operating from Victim or Interpreter emotions, take a deeper look at the Partner Mode aspects of cooperation, connection and choice.

Cooperation

Like most aspects of empowerment, cooperation begins within.  When you make choices from self-knowledge and self-respect, your decisions tend to enrich your life:  Recognize your skills and talents.  Accept the hand you’re dealt.  Be willing to laugh at yourself.  Open your senses and enjoy the world around you.  When you extend such Partner Mode emotions to yourself, you can avoid most inner conflicts.  (Observer Mode provides a gentle, hopeful middle ground.)

In my last blog, I referred briefly to my troubled marriage.  For many complex reasons, I stayed with my marriage until after my children were grown.  After about 27 years, I decided to leave my husband.  I kept my decision secret from him, planning to deliver the news as I was heading out the door.  Then I decided it wasn’t fair to blindside him, so I gave him advance warning.  Delivering my news evolved into a discussion, and then the discussion devolved into a promise from me to not leave.  Afterwards, I felt I had just sentenced myself to life imprisonment, and I plunged into the darkest despair of my life.  I sobbed my heart out for several hours before deciding I had to get strong enough to stay.  At that moment, I entered Observer Mode.

From the neutral space of accepting what was, I saw the possibility that somehow I could make things better for myself.  I wrote out an affirmation that went something like, “My life is one of peace and happiness. All negativity has departed, leaving only love and harmony.”  I wrote it out by hand, filling pages and pages with it, until I felt it in my heart, until I believed it.  At that moment, I entered Partner territory.

All negativity did not depart.  All my negativity did.  Sure, there were times when I slipped into Interpreter Mode, but now I had a tool.  I had internalized that affirmation at such a deep level that repeating it brought me back into cooperation with myself, with my intention for happiness and harmony.  I soon realized that if I got strong enough to stay, I’d probably be strong enough to go.

One of the powerful results of operating in Partner Mode is discovering what’s true for you.  When you are in cooperation with yourself, you come into greater cooperation with your values.  In Interpreter Mode, your values can conflict with each other, or you can find yourself in conflict with your values.  To honor a may be to betray b. To hold firm with x may mean you have to relax y. In Partner Mode, your values become your partners in creating a fulfilling and happy life.

Connection

From the spirit of cooperation implicit in Partner Mode, you begin to see your connection to everything.  Everyone and everything becomes a potential partner.  Think of all the people who reside in your life or pass through it:  family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, clerks, patrons, teachers, students, clients, competitors, fellow travelers – even enemies.  What would it be like if you saw every single one of these people as a partner?  What if you saw every single one of them as willing to cooperate with you?

In Partner Mode, this is not a stretch.  When you approach someone with friendliness (instead of suspicion or resentment), the positive energy you emit will overwhelm any hostility they may carry.  When you internalize a Partner emotion, it’s yours regardless of the situation.  Regardless of the state of mind, outward appearance, previous behaviors or agenda of the other person, you are trust, willingness, confidence, serenity, affection or appreciation.  When you are these attributes, this energy, you will be the strongest power in the room.  You draw others into cooperation with you.  You may even draw them into cooperation with their best good.

Now think of all the things and situations in your life:  house, car, equipment, work, play, hobbies, studies, traffic, animals, food, sleep, money, energy, time, health, spirituality, etc.  What would it be like to feel a sense of connection and cooperation with everything?  What if you saw everything in your life as willing to cooperate with you?

Again, in Partner Mode this is not a stretch.  Partner Mode reaches out.  It recognizes your connection with everything else and extends the hand of friendship.  After Observer Mode neutralizes conflict, Partner Mode makes friends.  For instance, embrace harmony each morning as you get in your car, and traffic will flow more smoothly during your commute.  Become friends with money, and money will become friends with you.  Approach tasks with eagerness, and your tools and equipment will join with you in the accomplishment.

Expand your view of everything, and you will discover an unseen partner.  I don’t have a specific name for this unseen partner, so call it whatever feels right to you:  the universe, god, spirit, cosmic consciousness, your guides, quantum energy, etc.  By whatever name, this unseen partner is infinite, available, willing, non-judgmental, supportive, constant, unconditional.  You never have to prove yourself, earn its love, obey some set of rules, or follow a procedure.  The instant you choose a Partner emotion, you open your connection with this unseen partner.  (The power of this unseen partner is always available, like electricity wired into a home, but Interpreter Mode forgets to turn on the lights, and Victim Mode also keeps the drapes drawn.)

Choice

When in a cooperative relationship (with anyone or anything), you accept your power.  You know your emotions are a choice, and you choose emotions that will empower you and others.  You choose the cooperative emotions that will bring about best good.

You also accept and respect the power others bring to the situation.  Their choices will be different from yours, as will their talents, their energy, and their particular focus.  You bring your power and emotions, they bring theirs, and together you can create something neither of you could do alone.

In Observer Mode, you become aware of the wide scope of possibilities open to you.  In Partner Mode, the scope of possibilities continues to expand, and you become more fully aware of your power to choose.  As your ability to choose what you want gets stronger, so does your ability to discard what you don’t want.  For instance, when you choose health, you discard the option of illness.  When you choose abundance, you toss out the option of scarcity.  When you choose happiness, you toss out the option of misery.  (You can let what you don’t want illuminate what you do want.)  In Partner Mode possibilities narrow into probabilities.

By discarding what you don’t want, you narrow the range of possibilities.   Misery, (or scarcity, or loneliness, or illness, or frustration) stops being a possibility.

Imagine you have a bushel basket full of apples.  Imagine sorting through all the apples and discarding any with bruises or rotten spots.  In the end, you have only ¾ of a bushel, but they’re all Grade A.  Do you mind that you have fewer apples?  By moving from Observer Mode to Partner Mode, you essentially eliminate the undesirable options.   All the shiny, delicious, crunchy, juicy possibilities remaining in your basket become probabilities.  And from this basket of good options, your best good will arise.

When you adopt Partner Mode emotions first in your relationship with yourself, these emotions become a part of you.  Expanding them to include others accomplishes several things:

  • You remove struggle and resistance from situations and events.
  • You become immune to the moods, agendas, stories and attitudes of others.
  • You find it much easier to extend these wonderful cooperative emotions to others.
  • Conflicts tend to soften into negotiations and agreements.
  • You establish a firm foundation for creation.

And finally, when you extend your circle of partners to include the infinite, you know you are never alone in any endeavor.   You can and do rely on your infinite partner.  And your infinite partner cooperates with you in every way.  The universe says, “yes!”

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The Gateway to Personal Power

Sunday, October 2nd, 2011

This week, I’ll focus entirely on the Interpreter Mode of personal power for the following reasons.

  1. Interpreter is probably the most common mode in human nature.
  2. I believe Victim and Interpreter emotions are the source of all human ills.
  3. Moving out of Interpreter Mode moves you out of the struggle.
  4. When you operate from Observer mode, everything becomes easier.

If some aspect of your life is difficult or unsatisfying, very likely you are approaching the situation or condition from Interpreter Mode.  You resist it, you struggle with it, and you are imposing a judgment on the situation, on other people, or yourself.  When you withdraw judgment, the struggle eases; when you stop resisting, the problem abates.

I’d like to share a little detail I didn’t include in the story of my bicycle accident a couple of weeks ago:  I experienced almost no pain.

My memory of the first days after the accident is hazy, and I seem to recall some soreness where the crossbar smacked into my thigh.  But the road burns on my face didn’t hurt.  I experienced no headaches as a result of the concussion.  My wrenched jaw didn’t hurt.  I hardly noticed the broken teeth.  I felt no after-effects from the surgery to repair my eye socket.  Of my own accord, I took no pain medications of any kind.  (I don’t know what they gave me in the hospital.)

I found this very curious, but then I found the whole thing quite fascinating.  I was more intrigued than dismayed with the assortment of injuries, with the concussion’s effects on my memory, balance and stamina, with having double vision, and by the rates at which different injuries healed.  But why so little pain?  The more I considered that question, the more it puzzled me.  About six years after the accident, I found a probable answer while preparing material for a seminar on happiness.

Observer Power

I did not judge the accident or my injuries.  I didn’t resist.  I didn’t struggle.  I experienced curiosity, relief (that it wasn’t worse), serenity and trust.  I trusted I would heal eventually, and I was willing to let the healing happen at its own pace.  I focused on how I could make the best of the state I was in, and I went patiently on with my life.  Later, as I began to work with my new model of personal power, I began to see I stayed in the modes of Observer and Partner.

My ability to avoid Interpreter Mode didn’t come automatically, or even naturally.  For most of my life I was very adept at such energies as annoyance, irritation, frustration, embarrassment, envy, guilt, hostility, misgiving, defensiveness and pride.  When I finally started to recognize the fruit I harvested by nurturing such a crop, I began to select different seeds.  I didn’t set an intention to have a “painless recovery from a traumatic accident”; I just wanted a happy, peaceful life.

After years of practice, the connections seem clear to me:  judgment equals pain; acceptance equals no pain.  All emotions and states of mind from Victim or Interpreter Mode generate adversity of some kind.

An Uneven Balance

Back when I taught novel writing, I began compiling a list of emotions as a “cheat-sheet” for writers.  Later, I sorted that list into the various modes and came up with my current Emotions List.  So far that list includes at least twice as many Interpreter emotions than any other mode, and 4½ times more than for Creator.  As I mentioned previously, the fight/flight/freeze mechanism characterizes all Victim emotions.  All Interpreter emotions share the element of judgment.  Observer emotions are neutral.  Cooperation marks partner emotions, and oneness is the hallmark of creator.

To access your personal power at the Observer level, you must be willing to leave judgment behind.  When you choose neutrality over judgment, most (if not all) the trials, tribulations and adversities of your life will ease up.

Living Life Now

This does not mean “bad” things will never again happen to you in your whole life.  I’m assuming you have no desire to retreat to a hermit’s cave and seek enlightenment through isolation.  I’m assuming you want to live, love, aspire, experiment, experience, and grow.  I’m assuming you will create new challenges for yourself – and if you don’t, life will no doubt supply you with some.  By thus engaging with your life, you will continue to gain self-knowledge, you will sometimes stumble and sometimes transcend, you will occasionally discover hidden pockets of judgment.  When you stop operating from Interpreter Mode, you will find more blessing than hardship in the events of your life.  Everything in your life will flow more easily.

The Gateway to Personal Power

So, let’s look at ways to become the Observer.  We’ll start by observing what happens in Interpreter Mode.

An event occurs and your brain responds with an emotion.  You experience this emotion somewhere in your body:  your gut, your throat, your heart, your lower back . . . somewhere.

You now have 17 seconds in which to respond to the emotion.  You can internalize it in some way – ignore it, act on it, think about it, bury it, etc.  Or you can dismiss it.  I encourage you to use those 17 seconds to acknowledge it, to become mindful of it.  Notice it and name it.  An emotion you ignore looks exactly like one you dismiss in that they both leave your consciousness.  However, an ignored emotion tends to take up residence in your body and busily generates its result.  (For instance, resentment results in neediness.)   An emotion you acknowledge and dismiss simply goes away.  This level of mindfulness is the very essential first step in accessing the power of your emotions.

However, if you don’t manage to dismiss it, here are two ways to deal with it:

You can deal with the emotion directly.  You’ve named it, now own it.  Say to yourself, “I’m choosing to feel _______.”  When you consciously take responsibility for the emotion, your subconscious mind recognizes your power to choose something else.  You will probably find yourself accepting this power to choose and instinctively choose to feel something else instead.

You can listen to it.  Pay attention to the story the emotion gathers to itself.  In and of themselves, stories help us make sense of a situation, make sense of the emotions we feel and look for options.  Unfortunately, in Interpreter mode the story always contains an element of judgment.

  • The story may be as simple as “That’s bad.” or “That’s good.”  “It’s her fault.” or “It’s all my fault.”
  • The story may assign motives – and the motives assigned will contain judgment:  “He’s stupid.” Or weak, or unconscionable, or a coward, or immoral, or wrong.
  • The story may rationalize behaviors:  “I just took the facts into account.” or “Given the circumstances. . . ” or “I couldn’t just stand there.” or “I wasn’t about to get involved.”
  • The story may deny options:  “I didn’t see.” or “I have to protect myself.” or “She made me.” or “I had no choice.”

Once you can see the judgment in the story, use an emotion from observer mode to retell the story without judgment.  For instance, respect will remove the scale of good/bad, right/wrong; compassion will reassign motives; humility will discourage rationalization; and courage will illuminate options.

You may find yourself in resistance to the emotion.  Perhaps you feel beset by anxiety, loneliness, embarrassment, ambition, doubt, envy, or some other interpreter emotion.  The presence and power of the emotion overwhelm you, and you want to be free.  Keep in mind that by judging it, you hold onto it as firmly as it holds on to you.

Open yourself up to it.  Say to the emotion, “Show me everything you’ve got!”  When you approach the emotion itself from the Observer mode, with curiosity, tolerance, courage, patience or courage, the balance of power shifts from the emotion to you.  As the emotion loses its power and you access more of yours, you discover it to be ephemeral – nothing but air.

Identify an antidote.  While every emotion in Interpreter mode produces an unfavorable result, each one also has an antidote.  I first encountered the concept of emotional antidotes while reading the transcripts of a symposium the Dalai Lama held on destructive emotions. The lama who discussed the idea said an antidote is specific to the emotion.  Not having access to his list, I’ve worked with clients by asking them to imagine which emotion would be the logical antidote to their situation.  We then work with whatever they come up with, and that seems to produce the results we want.  Consider the following examples, then choose your own antidote for your own Interpreter emotion:

Emotion =   Antidote

Doubt   =   Optimism

Frustration  =   Patience

Anxiety   =   Calm

Irritation    =   Niceness

Pride   =   Humor

We all operate across a spectrum of emotions.  Sometimes, in some situations, we’re caught by Victim or Interpreter emotions.  Other times we operate from Observer mode.  On occasion we soar into the realms of Partner or Creator.  When you can see yourself functioning mostly as Observer with shorter and more infrequent dips into Interpreter, you will also notice your fluctuations are elevated.  Sure there will be occasional slips, but as Observer becomes your natural state, Partner emotions will beckon more frequently.

It’s all a journey.  Where you are is where you are.  The choices you can see are your choices.  And your interpretation is your reality – until you choose a different path.

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Gratitude

Sunday, May 15th, 2011

You’ve heard the advice, “Have an attitude of gratitude.” Compared to other practices of thankfulness, that one entered my life fairly recently. As a very young child, I was taught to begin my prayers with thankfulness for my blessings. Then came the social courtesy of saying, “Thank you.”  And of course, we celebrated Thanksgiving Day, where stating what we were grateful for was almost as important as the feasting.

Gratitude seems to be deeply ingrained in the customs and social interactions of most cultures. None of us can go it alone, and appreciation strengthens the group, and a stronger group increases the potential for survival.

Gratitude strengthens all our partnerships. Within families and communities, of course, but also with ourselves, with our efforts and with the infinite.

Gratitude is the natural companion of love. Love inspires and energizes service, gratitude inspires and energizes receiving.

Receiving

We cannot exist on this planet without receiving. With every breath we take, we receive air. We do absolutely nothing to earn it, and most of us never give it a thought. I believe receiving, as an act of acceptance, is a form of gratitude. By breathing, by welcoming air into our bodies easily and naturally, we express our appreciation for air.

Receiving includes using what you’re given, expanding your gifts and loving what you have. Jesus taught this truth in the parable of the talents:  the wise servant was rewarded for using and increasing what he was given.

Gratitude receives with delight, finds value in challenge, honors the growth process and acknowledges the efforts of others.

In this issue, I’d like to explore some ways of moving beyond the mere expression of gratitude and into the realm of living it, practicing it and being it.

Live Your Truth

The world is full of teachers, gurus, ministers, politicians, advertisers, parents, friends, even corporations who want you to accept what they say. They may want your best good and believe they know what is best for you. They may be entrenched in their own beliefs or agendas and want to impose their way on everyone. They may be motivated by power or financial gain. Whatever their reasons, they try to influence you to their way of thinking.

You have your truth within you. (See Recognize Your Truth.)  When you practice your truth, when you live in accordance with it, your very life becomes an expression of gratitude for who you are and what you offer to the world.

Your truth, in its wholeness and fullness, accords with universal truth, and universal truth is constantly expanding. It grows with each irreplaceable contribution of each unique individual.

Your individual combination of abilities, values, insights, and personal power contributes to the understanding and expansion of the whole. And when you live in accordance with your truth, you “open the windows of heaven” and gain access to the vast universal pool of wisdom and understanding. You contribute and you receive.

In a way, it’s like having a bank account. You put money in, it accumulates interest, and you end up with more than you put in. By your participation, you acknowledge the value of money. It may never occur to you to think, “I’m so grateful for money and for the banking system. Money in flow helps many people prosper, ”  You don’t need to. The system works whether you’re grateful or not. Everyone who contributes has the potential to benefit.

This is equally (perhaps more) true when it comes to the free trade of human potential. When you live your truth, you are essentially saying, “I’m grateful for wisdom and truth and for the system that keeps it circulating. I’m grateful I can contribute to the benefit of others. I’m grateful others contribute and benefit me.”

You are expressing a prayer of gratitude every time you utilize and expand any aspect of your truth, including but not limited to:

  • Your talents.
  • Your love.
  • Your happiness.
  • Your wisdom.
  • Your knowledge.
  • Your service.
  • Your personal power.

Embrace Your Experiences

Not every experience in your life has been wonderful. No doubt you’ve experienced pain, trauma, loss, disappointment, and/or hardship. Some of your experiences changed your life forever. Perhaps some left you with scars–or even gaping wounds. What is there in such pain to be thankful for?

Being thankful is only one aspect of gratitude–and maybe you’re not thankful for pain. You don’t have to be. Every experience, no matter how difficult or painful, contributes to universal consciousness and understanding. You are unique. You experience life in an individual and distinctive way, and your personal experience adds to the universal database and influences the courses of time in some way.

A very good way to let go of pain is to explore the experience for the good embedded in it. Every experience has the potential to benefit you in two ways: what you can learn and how you can grow.

Every experience offers challenge, and in meeting the challenge, you grow. You may be pushed to greater physical feats. You may discover new concepts or gain insights. You may find yourself expanding your compassion. You may identify talents or abilities you didn’t know you had. You may meet new people or encounter alien beliefs. When you meet the challenge you expand, and expansion is always spiritual.

If you can receive your experiences fully and unconditionally, the pain will evaporate. Acceptance and pain cannot exist in the same space. If pain continues, you are subconsciously unwilling to let go of it. Reach for deeper understanding, additional growth, a stronger connection with your infinite self. When you probe for the value to you and embrace the experience, this unspoken expression of gratitude opens the way for growth and wisdom.

Welcome Your Opportunities

Every minute of every day contains opportunities. When you’re operating from gratitude, you increase your ability to see them. When you see them and take advantage of them, you’re expressing gratitude. The following opportunities are always available, regardless of any other circumstances:

  • The opportunity to respond. You always have both the opportunity and the ability to choose your reactions. The range of possible responses neither depends upon nor change with circumstances. You can lose and find triumph, or win and find insecurity. Once you recognize your capacity to choose your emotions, you will immediately begin to see a wider range of possibilities in all areas of your life.
  • The opportunity to think. (And imagine and want and create.)  As long as you’re alive, your brain is active. Use it with delight and confidence.
  • The opportunity to act. Most actions work in favor of best good or against it; few are neutral. If you find yourself holding back from action, check your thoughts and emotions. Replace doubt with gratitude, and both your willingness and ability to act will increase. Act from wisdom, and your every deed will be an expression of gratitude.
  • The opportunity to invite opportunities. Opportunities present themselves every hour of every day. Welcome them. Gratitude naturally exists within welcome, and as a result you will receive unexpected assistance from surprising sources.

Love Your Work

In Western cultures, productivity and work are often used synonymously. Or at least work is valued according to its level of productivity, and we value productivity from several angles.

  • We admire the end product, whether the result is an edifice, a masterpiece, a company, a beautiful child or great wealth.
  • We admire the people who produce such results: the architects, the builders, the artists, and the entrepreneurs.
  • We admire such functions as being productive, using time effectively, being efficient, accumulating results and staying busy.

Some people get these different aspects of productivity mixed up, putting the value on being busy first, and giving little attention to the body of work produced. They believe if they worked harder, they would get more done, and they would produce more and therefore they would be productive, as if this were a formula for success. Some people think busy equals productive. They pour attention, energy and emotion into work, without giving much consideration to Work.

Work, with a capital W, has value whether it’s seen as a job, a profession, an avocation, a calling, a purpose or the end result. Work for its own sake has little value. Slaves work. Hired laborers work. If you “hold a job,” you work. But when you think, create, build, establish, learn and grow, you do the Work.

Work in this sense, may be seen as Purpose, but the two are not necessarily synonymous. It depends on whether work is the what or the how. If you are putting yourself through school, supporting your family, having adventures, acquiring more skills, building a repertoire, experimenting, serving, etc., you are probably focused on what. You probably care more about the end result than the means used to get there. This is staying on purpose. This is doing your Work.

And when you do your Work, you are expressing gratitude. You are gratitude when you enjoy what you’re learning, delight in your family, immerse yourself in your adventures, revel in your mastery, celebrate your discoveries, love those you serve. When you are gratitude, you learn and grow, you strengthen your family, you have more adventures, you gain mastery, you make new discoveries, and you expand your service to others.

Trust Best Good

Best good happens as a result of alignment. When your choices are congruent with what’s true for you, the result will be best good. When you bring your thoughts, emotions and actions into alignment with your choices, the result will be best good .

As sentient beings, we have free will. We can choose. We can release negative emotions. We can move out of judgment. We can acquire calm. We can access more of our own power. And when we do, we invite best good.

Such choices–for calm, for congruence, for wisdom–are expressions of gratitude. No words are necessary. Conscious thankfulness is not necessary. The gratitude lies embedded in our choices. By trusting that best good will result, trust becomes your expression of gratitude for your agency, for your truth, for the experiences that provide wisdom and growth, for you life.

Live mindfully and well, and the energy of your unspoken gratitude will precede you in all your endeavors.

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About Time

Sunday, January 23rd, 2011

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

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

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

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

Where do you live?

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

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

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

The Past

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

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

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

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

The Future

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

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

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

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

The Present

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

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

The Power of Time

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Time as a Function of Power

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

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

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

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

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

Where to Begin

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

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

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

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


If you would like personal help mastering these aspects of time, please contact me directly through email:  kathy@kathyjacobson.com

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Strength, Stamina and Flexibility

Sunday, November 28th, 2010

Everyone knows physical power comes from physical exercise.  Lately I’ve been noting the ways the same is true for personal growth.  To develop, to gain, to improve, and/or to master requires exercise, and there are many similarities between what it takes to become physically powerful and what it takes to be emotionally or spiritually powerful.

To become physically strong, you must exercise your muscles.  Use them.  Stress them.  Reinforce the gains you make.  Keep using them.  The more you work your muscles and strengthen them, the more they support you, the more stability you have, and the more you can expect of them.

It takes spiritual strength to act well.  Any choices you make that provide stability, give support or increase movement will strengthen the muscles of the spirit.

Although some exercise programs focus primarily on muscular strength, the inclusion of endurance training results in all-around better health.  You want the ability to complete what you start, join in, keep pace, go the distance, enjoy the journey.  Stamina exercises are all about oxygen delivery, working the heart and the lungs for better blood flow.  The more oxygen you can take into your lungs and process through your heart, the longer the rest of your body can work without fatigue.

It takes spiritual stamina to be both compassionate to others and true to yourself.  Any choices you make that move your energy to a higher level, increase your discernment, unleash your creativity and deepen your peace will increase this type of stamina.

Oddly, someone can have both strength and endurance without flexibility, but optimum health depends on it.  If your tendons are stiff and unyielding, they limit the range of your joints, and this limits you.  Of course, you can live a rich life without being able to do a back bend or sit in lotus position, but flexibility allows you to climb stairs, turn your head, tie your shoes, even take someone’s hand.

The more aware and conscious you are, the more agile and adaptable you are.  Any choices you make that expand your willingness, confidence, and tenacity will increase your spiritual flexibility.

As with all aspects of personal power, potential and possibilities begin to open up when you become neutral.  Judgment, struggle, and resistance will mire you in the Swamp of Can’t.  You can thrash around forever and not gain any ground.  Before you seriously embark on a spiritual exercise program, let go of such encumbrances (See  Observer Power and  Neutralizing Fear).  As a neutral observer, you can access your personal power consciously and intentionally.

Gaining Strength

When you strengthen your spiritual muscles, you improve your inner strength in three ways – you gain more stability in the various aspects of your life, you are more able to support yourself and others, and you move more easily.

The greater your inner strength, the easier it is to change habits which do not serve you.  Of course, some habits simplify and stabilize your life, such as brushing your teeth, taking your vitamins, saying Please and Thank You, etc.  As established practices they take less energy than having to decide them every day or in each similar situation.  Other habits, such as defensiveness, procrastination, complaint, or self-doubt keep you stuck.  When you strengthen your inner core of courage and confidence, it’s much easier to move away from those habits and toward new ones.

Building personal strength from within not only directs you to better practices, it helps reinforce and sustain the gains you make.   When you move from the habit of defensiveness into a new practice of appreciation, sustaining the new practice requires a higher level of inner strength.  Like pushups.  It may take months to build the strength to reach a certain number, but when you attain that level of strength and regular repetition makes it easy.

So, here are some exercises to increase your inner strength:

  • Choose.  Every time you make a conscious decision – especially in favor of your best good – you strengthen your spirit.  Become aware of the transition points between activities, and pause for a moment.  Consider the thing you are about to do, and recognize you are at a choice point.  You can do it or not.  When you move forward, do it mindfully and on purpose.  Such small choices increase your strength when it comes to big choices.
  • Repeat that which supports your best good.  Think in terms of actions, of course, where repetition is obvious.  Consider also thoughts and emotions, which may seem less obvious.  It takes practice to become neutral.  Practice will help you look for additional possibilities.  With practice you can reinforce appreciation instead of criticism, enjoyment instead of distaste, willingness instead of suspicion.  As with physical exercise, repetition trains the muscles, reduces resistance and builds strength.
  • Be consistent and constant.  A good workout always feels good – but you gain most from consistency.  (And you gain nothing if you only manage once-in-a-row.)
  • Play.  Play outside.  Play with friends and children.  Play with your creativity.  Play with possibilities.

Gaining Stamina

When you increase your spiritual stamina, you increase both your endurance and your longevity.  You have staying power when it comes to solving problems, facing challenges, growing in understanding, and seeing something through to fulfillment.  You also experience better health which generally results in a longer life.

Stamina is the key to healing.  Just as negative energy dismantles and destroys, positive energy builds and heals.  Most conflicts, frustrations, anxieties, and even illnesses arise from energies devoid of wisdom (See The Power of Emotions). Spiritual stamina helps you see through the deep smog of adversity to find the contributing energies and/or recognize what healing looks like and evoke the energy necessary to achieve it.

To increase your inner stamina, try one or more of the following exercises:

  • Synchronize your thoughts, actions and emotions.  Decide what you want, then attune these three energetic forces.  It doesn’t matter which you start with.  To align your thoughts may require examining beliefs and fears until you can change the one and release the other.  To align emotions may require working your way up the Diamond of Mastery, moving from Victim, to Interpreter, to Observer, to Partner, even to Creator.  To align actions may require a mindful attention to habitual behaviors and the inner strength to choose new ones.
  • Minister to Others.  Service leads to more stamina, so this becomes a circular path:  stamina > service > stamina > service.
  • Transcend.  A daily spiritual practice (of any kind) can help you transcend habits that no longer serve you.  You can transcend entrenched preconceptions by practicing different thoughts and behaviors.  Using originality and creativity, you can transcend unhelpful paradigms.  You can transcend old beliefs simply by choosing what you want to believe instead and bringing your emotions and actions into congruence.

Gaining Flexibility

Flexibility of spirit doesn’t involve the joints and tendons, although stiffness in either impairs movement.  Achieving agility comes primarily from releasing resistance.  When you become supple of spirit – calm, open, willing – you acquire the ability to stretch your thinking, bob-and-weave in the face of challenge, expand into greater love, and sidestep disappointments.

As you become more flexible, you gain agility in all areas of your life.  You become more emotionally resilient and therefore enjoy happier relationships.  You become more intellectually active and therefore more creative.  You have a greater ability to evade infection and therefore healthier.  You become more adaptable, so change becomes less stressful.

To becomes more flexible, try one or more of the following exercises:

  • Laugh often.  Humor is one of nature’s best ways to release tension.  When you laugh, your body becomes fuller and softer – and so does your spirit.
  • Relax.  If you want to become more flexible of body, you must work with each stiff joint and incrementally ease away the resistance within it, bit-by-bit, lengthening, expanding, stretching.  You can release resistance of spirit the same way.  Observe any rigid thoughts or emotions and let got of the resistance bit-by-bit, expand a concept, stretch at attitude, explore a belief, reach out.
  • Experiment.  Tightness results from lack of movement.  Start moving.  Stick your toe into unknown waters and see what happens.  Observe the patterns of your relationships and opt for a new move instead of an old strategy.  Whenever you’re considering possibilities, push yourself to think of two or three new ones.

Physical exercise doesn’t have to be arduous.  If you want it to produce results, however, it needs to be consistent.  The same is true for inner work.  Consistency counts.  However, the belief of “no pain, no gain,” which is often applied to physical exercise, is absolutely counter-productive when it comes to spiritual growth.  On a spiritual level, there’s no such thing as resistance training.  When going for strength, stay purposeful and recognize incremental steps as steady gains.  When going for stamina, extend yourself into greater service and more audacious goals.  When going for flexibility, reduce resistance and eliminate judgment.

I offer personal one-on-one coaching geared to helping you become happier, healthier, and more abundant in every way.  The first session is always free.  For more information, visit my website and/or contact me.  My email address is kathy@kathyjacobson.com.

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Willingness

Sunday, October 10th, 2010

Last week I explored some principles about operating from Observer mode and calmness.  (See Calm and Curious.) It seems calmness both precedes and results from neutrality, and neutrality is the essential state of Observer mode.  Only then do positive possibilities become evident.  (See Emotions List.)

Today I’m taking the same principle to the next level with an exploration of the relationship between partner mode and  willingness.  Willingness both precedes and results from cooperation, and cooperation is the essential state of Partner mode.

To get a feel for this relationship between willingness and cooperation, compare two situations in your own life.  First, identify a satisfying relationship, one that comes easily, that you enjoy, with a fair exchange of energy between you and the other member of the partnership.  (This “other” might be a person, or it might be some aspect of your life such as your health, your garden, your job, etc.)   Take a moment to think about the relationship and savor it.  Notice the energy that hums through your body.  See if you can name what you feel.

Now identify a challenging relationship in your life, one fraught with conflict, disappointment, struggle, or frustration.  (Again, this relationship might be with a non-person: your job, your finances, the neighbor’s dog, etc.)  As you think about this relationship, notice the changes that take place in your body, any differences in tension.  Again, see if you can name what you feel.

Look at the Patterns

In the first instance, you probably trust the relationship, have confidence in both yourself and “the other,” a belief things will work out, and a subconscious expectation that what’s true now will continue to be true in the future.  You experience the energy of wellness, eagerness, pleasure.  You may feel light, happy, peaceful.

In the second instance, it’s likely your trust and confidence run in the other direction, and you probably have a subconscious expectation that if anything changes it will go from bad to worse.  You experience stress, tension, doubt, perhaps anxiety.

All emotions of Partner mode have an element of willingness embedded within them.  Therefore, from Partner mode, you bring acceptance, confidence, empathy, trust, appreciation to the situation.

It’s essential to remember, however, that willingness arises from calmness.  You must become neutral first.  (Calm and Curious) When you are calm, you can be curious.  From curiosity, it’s fairly easy to step into willingness.

Consider willingness as the opposite of willfulness.  Willfulness wants to control, to know all the steps between Point A and Point B.  Willfulness doesn’t realize that control is a form of resistance, so all that energy you invest in making something happen becomes the restraining force that obstructs your intention.

Willingness, on the other hand, holds the energy of the end result, and you can use that energy to create a space for an intention to unfold.

Following are some techniques for practicing willingness and creating the partnerships you want in your life.  Some of them will work better for you than others.  Experiment with them to discover which ones produce the greatest state of willingness within you.

Practicing Willingness

When you think about partnership, consider first who or what you want to partner with, such as another person or an outcome such as wellness or prosperity.  Yet the first partnership must always be with yourself.  (Just as calmness is a way of being, so is willingness.)  You must be willing to just be.

And you must be calm.  To become calm, use one or more of the techniques from Calm and Curious. Then you’ll be ready for this next level of practice.

Adopt Willingness

  • Accept the consequences of your choices.  Where you are today and what you have today are the results of your past choices.  Acknowledge those choices without judgment, without second guessing them or trying to psychoanalyze them.  Take full responsibility for them, then recognize them and let them be.  Release any resistance you have toward them or any discomfort they produce within you.  Only by owning them can you release the hold they have on you.  Willingness requires your full realization of your power of choice.
  • Imagine the best possible outcome.  Partnerships are synergistic, producing far better results than either partner could produce alone.  Imagine yourself bringing your highest ability and energy, and imagine your partner also operating at the highest level of power.  What can you imagine will come from this extraordinary combination?  Once you have an idea of what’s possible, see if you can double that result.  Imagine an amazing miracle.  Embed the possibility of such a miracle in your consciousness.
  • Recognize physical tension and discomfort as signals of resistance.  It’s not necessary to identify what you’re resisting; simply working with the knot (or pain or strain or block) will release resistance and welcome willingness.  In our culture, we tend to attribute such knots to stress, lack of sleep, poor posture, not enough exercise, a strain, or some other outer source.  When you rename it resistance, you acknowledge an inner source, and this empowers you to be pro-active instead of reactive.  Begin by letting your body go soft, as soft as you can.  Now, focus your attention on the discomfort and let your mind unwind the tension.  You might imagine a spring uncoiling, or a tangle of yarn relaxing into a smooth strand, or boiling water cooling to calmness.  Use whatever image your mind comes up with and consciously turn resistance into willingness.
  • Remove urgency.  Separate time from a task, goal or intention by investing your energy in the end result rather than a schedule.  Pressure, importance, immediacy, and deadlines are all forms of resistance.  Willingness relies on acceptance, confidence, pleasure, respect, fun and attention.  Give your attention to the end result rather than the clock.  And have fun.

Enact Willingness

  • Lower your voice.  For most people, voice volume reflects negative emotional energy.  Turning down the volume often relaxes the driving forces of Interpreter mode emotions.
  • Simplify your actions.  Since effective partnerships are those in which both parties join efforts, be willing to let your partner contribute.  Identify your partner.  Recognize the assets and energy your partner brings into the equation.  Release any need you have to take on your partner’s share of the energy.  (The Infinite is always immediately available to partner with you.)
  • Whatever the intention of your partnership, put some element of the desired result into flow.  Perhaps you want a better job – identify what that better job would require from you (more ingenuity, more responsibility, a closer working relationship with your coworkers) and direct some of that energy to your present job.  Perhaps you want to increase your money stream – give some money away.  Perhaps you want to strengthen a relationship – identify a strengthening quality and give it freely to the other person.
  • Aid someone else.  Helping others provides many benefits.  Specific to willingness, you put generous energy into flow.  The more willingly you give, the more willingly you receive.

Energize Willingness

  • Find what you trust.  To enjoin in partnership with something or someone at an energetic level, you’re already adept at neutrality.  Without judgment, identify one or more aspects of the partnership you truly trust, and invest your emotional energy in what you know to be true.
  • Appreciate both your own contribution and that of your partner.  Right now, you may see your contribution as greater or lesser than that of your partner.  Stop comparing.  Acknowledge the energy you’re investing.  Acknowledge the benefits you gain by accepting the help of any partners, friends, allies, mentors, challengers, even adversaries.  When you’re aligned with something, the precise help you require may come from any quarter.
  • Celebrate being alive. You are a living, breathing, acting, energized human being.  Rejoice!
  • Adopt a daily spiritual practice.  Taking time each day to become quiet and mindful will bring you into greater harmony and partnership with yourself, and that sense of wholeness will translate naturally into a general state of willingness.

Some of the above techniques will work better for you than others.  I encourage you to play with them, experiment, try different ones in different situations.  Be a willing participant in your life, your endeavors, your desires and your experiences.

(If you would like to explore the ideas and strategies in this article, or if you like help applying them in your own life, I would like to work with you.  The first coaching session with me is always at no cost.  Send an email to: kathy@kathyjacobson.com )

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Observe Your Path

Sunday, September 12th, 2010

This week in a conversation with one of my oldest friends, she remembered when we used to go hiking together and how our hiking styles were so different.  She liked to pick a trail with a good destination – a lake, or an overlook – and follow the trail until we got there.  I like to take off cross country and end up wherever I end up.  Often, we’d follow the trail up to the lovely destination, then we’d bushwhack back to the car.

One of the truly endearing things about my friend is that she always stayed neutral when we hiked together.  (After once or twice, however, her kids refused to come along.)  We often encountered rough terrain or heavy brush, sometimes we had to backtrack, and my way inevitably took longer.  Even as she teased me for my preference, she exhibited awareness, flexibility, humor, openness, patience and resilience.

The path through life often resembles bushwhacking more than a groomed trail.  While we might prefer a beaten path with a delightful destination (at least some times), we’re more likely to encounter steep slopes, brambles, pitfalls, detours, mud patches, dead ends and stormy weather (at least some of the time).

When the going gets tough, staying the observer goes a long way toward building bridges, smoothing the path, paving the potholes, and lightening the load.

This does not happen by magic.  It happens by the personal energy you generate and transmit.

Results Follow Energy

I have identified five operational modes of personal power (The Diamond of Mastery) in which the energies of thoughts, actions and emotions combine and generate a result.    Here’s a quick review:

In Victim mode, you cede your personal power to the energies of powerlessness – fear, anger, anxiety, jealousy, resentment, loneliness, despair, etc.  Your vision of what’s possible narrows to two options – fight or flight.  The resulting energy is destructive, either to yourself or others, and results in increased suffering.

In Interpreter mode, your energies become less dark. Because you start discriminating between good and bad, you tend to polarize and judge.  Problems and difficulties abound, but you see yourself as a solver of problems.  The energy of judging, however, keeps you in the struggle.

In Observer mode, you stop judging, your energies become neutral.  As a result, the way becomes easier.

In Partner mode, your energies become cooperative.  Obstacles morph into allies, you begin to recognize hidden strengths where you’ve always seen weaknesses.  It’s as if you’ve suddenly gained traction on black ice.  What you want shifts from the possible to the probable.

In Creator mode, your energies merge with the creative energies of the universe and intentions turn into miracles.  The probable becomes the inevitable.

Being the Observer

Interestingly enough, you can observe from every one of these modes.  And as soon as you observe, you shift into neutral.  For as long as you stay in observer energy, you see possibilities that might otherwise be invisible.  observer mode is like using night goggles in the dark, like having x-ray vision, like remote viewing.

Consider that at the two extremes, the modes of victim and creator, energies are focused very narrowly.  Victims focus on surviving and/or escaping; Creators focus on uniting and/or manifesting.  From either place, you can step off to one side and observe.  You can always identify what you’re feeling, what you’re thinking and what you’re doing.  In either of those states, if you take a breath and release your focus you can name the feeling, state the thought, describe the action.  Thus, you observe.  The instant you refocus, you are no longer the observer.

Because focus in Interpreter  and Parner modes is less intense and less directed, it’s fairly easy to become the observer.  From Interpreter mode, you have to stop judging.  The more neutral you become, the more accurate, genuine, and empowering your observations will be.  From Partner mode, you have to relax your connection to your intention.  In either case, you will find value in occasionally observing where you are in relationship to where you want to be.

Although the key concept of Observer mode is neutrality, Observer mode is a zone of variation.  As a beginner, you might find it easier to achieve indifference than humor, easier to watch than to understand.

Practicing Neutrality

One way to master Neutrality and Observation is to practice the following simple techniques:  Notice.  Recognize.  Name.  Claim.  I suggest you apply these steps in the following areas of your life.  You will experience increases in your personal power with each area you master.

1. Observe your energies. Several times a day, stop whatever you’re doing a take a quick inventory of your current state of being.

  • Notice what’s going on.
  • Recognize your actions, your thoughts, and your emotion(s) as present and active.
  • Name your actions, thoughts and emotions as various contributors to what’s going on.
  • Claim your behavior, your perspective of the immediate situation, and your feelings.

Most people are aware of their actions. (I’m writing.  I’m shopping.  I’m driving.  I’m arguing.  I’m organizing.)  A majority of people may be aware of their thoughts.  (I’m trying to solve a problem.  I’m thinking about my kids.  I’m balancing my budget.)  Very few people recognize the emotions associated with their actions and thoughts.  (I’m worried about my son and I’m pissed at his teacher.  I’m afraid there’s not enough money.  I’m obsessing about that insulting thing my neighbor said to me last night.)

The more you observe your actions, your thoughts and your emotions, the more you rein in your energies.  Only when you know what you’re dealing with can you direct your own personal power.

2.  Observe your relationships.  Every relationship has its own personality, so sometime during the next week, give some attention to those relationships you care most about.

  • Notice the general energy of the relationship.
  • Recognize – without judgment – that you bring your thoughts, actions and emotions into the mix and so does the other person.
  • Name the behaviors you engage in with that person.  Name your thoughts and emotions.  You can ask the other person what they’re thinking or feeling, but don’t just guess.  Too often guesswork will spin you into interpreter mode.
  • Claim your own part – how you’re acting, what you’re thinking, what you’re feeling.  Do not claim the other person’s part.

3.  Observe your choices. Separate past choices from present choices and treat them slightly differently.

For past choices:

  • Notice the choice you made.
  • Recognize the ways you invested your energies in that choice.
  • Name your beliefs at the time, your emotions at the time and the action you took.
  • Claim the choice you made.  Do not judge!  As the observer, you can acknowledge you made the best choice you could at the time, you can leave behind any stories associated with what the other person did, and you can acknowledge the situation was merely a series of events.

For present choices:

  • Notice when you arrive at a choice point.
  • Recognize the vast panorama of choices available to you.
  • Name your present emotions, your present perspectives, and the choices that appeal to you most.
  • Claim your choice.

4.  Observer your patterns. Your habits, beliefs, expectations and assumptions combine in ways that create patterns, and you have different patterns for the different areas of your life.  In one area, your pattern might be positive, progressive, productive; in another area, your pattern might be difficult, destructive, disheartening.  You will gain tremendous insight into your personal power when you observe the ways you invest energy in different patterns.

  • Notice your patterns by looking for such aspects as similarities, repetitions, your argument for or against (it may be as standard as reading a script), your level of mindfulness (less mindfulness indicates a more set pattern), and the frequency of the pattern.
  • Recognize your patterns of behavior and of thought.  Pay particular attention to the emotions you experience and any progression of emotion.  Also identify what you hope to gain by this pattern.
  • Name the ways you allow each of the three energies to develop in the pattern.
  • Claim the result.  Patterns lead to the same outcomes time after time after time.

4.  Observe your results. The result you’re getting in any given area of your life can be a spotlight illuminating the energies you are (or have been) investing.  To fully understand what you’re investing, become the detached observer of what you’re getting.

  • Notice what is.  If you aren’t quite making ends meet – that’s what is.  If you have a health issue – that’s what is.  If you have a rocky relationship with someone – that’s what is.
  • Recognize the energy you’re bringing to this situation.  By your actions, your thoughts and your emotions you contribute energy to every aspect of your life.  Accepting your contribution to any situation expands your ability to initiate change.  Also recognize the contributions of others and acknowledge that as their part.
  • Name your contribution.  Refer to the Actions List for the actions common to the five modes.  If you’re doing a lot of complaining, you are probably feeling pretty helpless, which is victim energy.  If you’re procrastinating, you’re making things more difficult, which is interpreter energy.  You can identify thought energy by the kinds of questions are assumptions you’re making.  See my article called The Power of the Question.  For help recognizing your emotions, refer to the Emotions List. 
  • Claim the result.  Even if you feel you didn’t create the situation, when you claim the results of your life, you become their master.  Like a dog who obeys only one master, your results answer only to you.

Mastery

Observer mode expands your access to time and space.  As the observer you have time to look around, to consider, to explore, to meditate, to center, to choose.  You have space to spread out, to move, to experiment, to rearrange.  Pathways once hidden now become obvious.  Doors you assumed to be barred swing open with the merest nudge.

When you master neutrality, you see more clearly, envision more expansively, look for new possibilities, bring calm to stressful situations, you can trust you intuition, never experience helplessness or hopelessness.  Basically, your life never feels out of control.

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Posted in Cause and Effect, Creator Mode, Interpreter Mode, Observer Mode, Partner Mode, Uncategorized, Victim Mode, personal power | 44 Comments »

Choosing and Using

Sunday, September 5th, 2010

In the mid-1990s, I attended a powerful workshop on abundance presented by Unity teacher  Edwina Gaines.  Somewhere in her workshop, she said, “What is up to you.  How is up to God.”  It’s the only thing I remember from the workshop, probably because at the time I was caught up in the importance of taking action.  Even though she continued with, “Listen for the divine idea,” I couldn’t get past my own belief in the need to do. While I had experienced the importance of aligning emotion with thought, I had also observed over and over again the necessity of also keeping actions aligned.  If you want to write a book, you must put words on paper; if you want to take bicycling pack trips, you have to put in the miles; if you want to be healthy, you have to eat properly; etc.

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

Taking on Your Part

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

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

Moving From What to How

Consider instead a what-to-how approach.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2. As you envision what you want as fulfilled, let the emotion(s) of fulfillment bubble up within you.  Recognize them and name them.  Do you feel happiness?  Joy?  Peace?  Love?  Confidence?  Exhilaration?  Gratitude?

3. Let yourself experience these emotions to the fullest.  Be them.  Let them expand and fill your entire body.  Let them flow down your arms and legs to your fingers and toes.  Feel the vibrations of them as fully and completely as you can.

4. Think about your intention and envelop it in this heightened level of your emotions.  Infuse it with these emotions.

5. At least once a day, repeat this exercise.  Imagine.  Identify.  Experience.  Infuse.

Emotion as How

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

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

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

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

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

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

Enhance your Product

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

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

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

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

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

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


(I offer one-on-one personal coaching.  If you would like a free introductory session, please write me:  kathy@kathyjacobson.com)

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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 »

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