Posts Tagged ‘Creative Power’

Choosing and Using

Sunday, January 29th, 2012

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

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

Taking on Your Part

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

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

Moving From What to How

Consider instead a what-to-how approach.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Emotion as How

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

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

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

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

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

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

Enhance your Product

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

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

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

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

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

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

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The Creation Conundrum

Sunday, December 18th, 2011

Emotions are creative energy.

That bare-bones statement gives rise to all kinds of difficult questions with potentially untenable answers.  In The Secret of Personal Power I raised the question I find the hardest to get my mind around:  Do people who are truly victims of circumstance create the disasters that befall them?  I believe the answer is no. Good things happen to bad people.  Innocent people fall victim to war, famine, earthquakes, floods, genocide, illness, etc.

So  let’s draw a line between the victims of those kinds of harsh realities and someone who’s caught up in the emotions of Victim mode.  When such emotions as anger, hate, despair, fear, jealousy, malice, contempt and panic are raging, and you are caught in their power, you feel helpless.  Regardless of the situation or the actions of someone else, the sense of helplessness comes from overwhelming emotion.  Emotions in this mode have all the power.  You see no way out, and you function by reaction rather than intention.  Such reactions tend to of two types:  fighting back or giving up.

Since all emotions have creative power, when such Victim emotions are raging they reinforce, intensify, multiply, compound.  The more you reiterate your fear, the greater the danger will seem.  Dwelling on anger adds fuel to the fire.  Reviewing your hurts magnifies your pain.  Whether your emotions actually make the situation worse is irrelevant; the emotions get bigger, or deeper, or more dangerous, or less acceptable, and the nature of the situation will conform to the emotions.

And thus we encounter a creation conundrum:  Do pain and suffering create the emotions of victim mode or do the emotions of Victim mode create pain and suffering?  I think the potential exists for it to work both ways.

Interpreter Power

When you leave Victim Mode, you multiply your personal power by 100.  You no longer feel totally helpless.  You start looking for answers and solutions.  Unfortunately, the solutions you attempt rarely solve the problem.  You’re still sick, lonely, poor, unhappy, frustrated, anxious, skeptical, depressed, etc.  That’s because the emotions of Interpreter mode create struggle.

The hallmark of Interpreter Mode is judgment, and by definition judgment is non-acceptance.  Non-acceptance is resistance.  And what you resist persists.

In Interpreter Mode, you make up motivations, comparisons, definitions, descriptions and many, many other forms of stories.  In Interpreter Mode, these stories infiltrate your self-talk.  Whenever you make a declarative statement about yourself, “I am _____,” you have decided something about yourself, and by your declaration you contribute to the creation of you as _____.   For instance, if you declare you are humiliated, you help create a reality of humiliation.

Sometimes such statements summarize your current condition:  “I am tired.”  “I am frustrated.”  “I am enjoying myself.”  Such summaries come in three different forms:  complaints, observations and declarations.  If your statement is a complaint, it indicates you’re operating from Interpreter Mode, and you are feeling relatively powerless.  If it’s a neutral observation, you’re in Observer Mode, and we’ll get to that in a minute.  If it’s a declaration, your words have Creator power.

When you hear yourself complaining, you can immediately take a step into greater power by recognizing there must be other possibilities.  Those possibilities may not come to you immediately, but declaring they must exist takes you into Observer Mode.

So traffic is bad during rush hour.  Can you change your schedule?  Can you switch to a different mode of transportation?  Can you take better advantage of that block of time?  Can you create a different reality for yourself?

So your child is impossible.  Can you get to know her better?  Can you acknowledge her strengths rather than judge her weaknesses?  Can you discover what’s really bothering her?  Can you create a better relationship with her?

Of course, it’s possible to stay in Interpreter Mode while you’re looking for possibilities, but any form of judgment will entangle your options in resistance and struggle.  Use the tried and true brainstorming technique of writing down every idea that comes to you without stopping to evaluate.  You’ll be surprised how often the best option turns out to be the one you initially have the most resistance to.

When you form an opinion about yourself and make self-declarations based on that opinion, that opinion is likely based on limited or mis-information:  “I don’t like carrots.”  “I’m not athletic.”  “I can’t sing.”

Perhaps you believe you don’t like carrots because when you were little, your Great Aunt Hilda always served them creamed.  Perhaps you believe you’re not athletic because your family had a ping-pong table in the basement when you were twelve and you always lost.  Perhaps you believe you can’t sing because you’re measuring your ability against that of Pavarotti or Julie Andrews.  Whatever the reasons, the more you repeat these statements the truer they become.  Once they become true, you may hate carrots even when prepared by a five-star chef; you may refuse to attempt any sports, even those that don’t require speed or good hand-eye coordination; and you might enjoy singing with the church choir, but you’ll never find out.

The conundrum I find in Interpreter Mode is:  “How do I know what’s true for me vs what I perceive to be true for me?  Am I limited by my perceptions even if I want to create something else?”  Creating best good begins with choosing your wholeness first and being committed to what’s true for you.

Observer Power

When you leave the resistance of Interpreter Mode, you discover the emotions of Observer Mode create calm.  When you operate from calm you are 100 times more powerful than when you operate from struggle, and the creative power shifts from the emotion to you.

The “secret” of moving from Interpreter to Observer is simple.  Stop judging.

Recently, one of my clients  had been caught up in judgment in a couple of situations in his life.  In all other areas he felt calm and centered, but with two or three people he couldn’t forget the injuries he’d experienced at their hands.  He named the costs of holding onto his judgment (headaches, anxiety), and during our session I kept nudging him toward neutrality.  Finally, he said, “But that wouldn’t be any fun!”  With that statement he identified the challenge:  it’s possible to get a kind of perverse enjoyment from Interpreter level emotions.

Perhaps one of the things we look for when we make up our interpretations and stories, is evidence we’re not guilty, it’s not our fault, we couldn’t help it, someone else caused this, it was an accident, nobody’s perfect, we tried our hardest.  Etc.  We resist the very possibility we played a role or own a share of the responsibility.  Well, stop judging.  Extend compassion to yourself and others.  When you do, you create room for growth and development.

When your observations come from curiosity, patience or hope, you create and expand your choices.  When you relax rather than resist, your entire body responds and you enjoy greater health and well-being.  Whereas judgment is harsh and unbending, neutrality is soft and fluid.

Because the hallmark of Observer Mode emotions is neutrality, the energy you experience changes.  Because you are not in constant conflict, you are not in constant tension.  You are safe, sheltered from the storm, freed from conflict, in the now.  Adversity looses its sting.  You may know you still face challenges, you are not intimated by them.  You may know times are still tough, you recognize it’s temporary.  You recognize you have accessed the power to:

  • Change at least some aspects of the situation.
  • Change your perception of the situation.
  • Look for options.
  • Trust your intuition.
  • Choose the emotions you want to feel.

My client’s statement, “But that wouldn’t be any fun!” gives rise to the Observer conundrum:  Do conflict and challenge mean the same thing, or is challenge without conflict possible?  In my experience it’s totally possible to have challenge without conflict .

Observer Mode is the most slippery of all the modes because there’s no such thing as an objective observer.  As soon as you observe something, you put it in context of your life, your values, your preferences, your expectations, your aspirations.  You become the subject of your observation, and you will move in one direction or another.  You will either slide back into Interpreter Mode, or you will edge into Partner Mode.  The direction you move will depend on whether you choose judgment or cooperation.

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

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From Soul to Mind

Monday, August 22nd, 2011

In Alcoholics Anonymous they call the tendency to think too much “the paralysis of analysis.”  In his book Courage–The Joy of Living Dangerously, Osho says, “You were born as a no-mind. . . . If you were born as a no-mind, then the mind is just a social product. It is nothing natural, it is cultivated.”

I run across this theme all the time. According to many, the mind confuses the issue. The mind gets stuck in the story. The mind believes lies as easily as it believes truths. The mind manipulates the facts. Get out of your mind and into your heart. Yadda, yadda, yadda.

Except human beings have this incredible brain. We think, we talk, we tell stories, we reason, we perform proofs, we translate, we write, we create works of art, we build buildings and roads and machines.

Everywhere we look we can see positive evidence of the mind in action. And yet, most of us have gotten stuck on an idea, or a concept, or a story, or a belief, and that sticking point immobilizes us, or points us in the wrong direction, or complicates a simple problem, or fuels a conflict. So, is the mind a liability or an asset?

Clearly, it’s both.

Sure, the mind gets confused, gets fixated, gets distracted, has obsessions, has blind spots, and can be unduly influenced by misinformation and misconceptions. The mind is also one of the primary means by which the soul communicates with the conscious self.  The ability of the mind to hear the messages of the soul seems directly related to personal power. The more attuned you are to your power, the more clearly the soul can communicate. Consider the following:

The Ability to Listen

The Victim mode of personal power is characterized by helplessness. The emotions that keep a person in Victim mode include fear, anger, hate, resentment and anxiety. These emotions are so strong they wrest power from those experiencing them. They create so much internal noise they overwhelm communications from the soul, making the message inaudible.

The Interpreter mode of personal power is characterized by struggle and difficulty. Emotions of this mode include frustration, irritation, envy, certainty, defensiveness and self-doubt. These emotions leach power from those experiencing them.  While not so blaringly invasive as Victim emotions, they still obscure communications from the soul, making the message almost inaudible.

Observer mode is the gateway to personal power. Characterized by neutrality, the emotions of this mode include a wide range of non-judgment–from indifference through amusement, curiosity and flexibility to gentleness and tolerance. When you’re in Observer mode the messages of your soul become fully audible, although you may not fully recognize them.

Partner mode is characterized by cooperation and includes such emotions as acceptance, respect, empathy, excitement, gratitude and cheerfulness. At this level the messages from your soul become meaningful.

The Creator level of personal power is characterized by oneness. The emotions of this mode include love, happiness, peace, delight, and joy. When experiencing such emotions, the messages of your soul become resonant.

On a continuum of sound, Victim Mode would be Inaudible, Interpreter Mode would be Barely Audible, Observer Mode would be Audible, Partner Mode would be Meaningful, Creator Mode would be Resonant

It’s important to remember that the various modes are not static. You can be in Creator mode at work, in Interpreter mode with your spouse, in Victim mode during a conflict with your neighbor, and in Partner mode when you cook. History is full of stories of tortured artists who experienced amazingly high levels of personal power in their creative endeavors but could barely function in “real life.”

If you want to gain insight into your personal ability to hear messages from within, you can graph your personal power with the following exercise:

  • List the various areas of your life or the different activities you perform daily. (Areas:  career, health, family, creativity, service, adventure, money, etc. Activities:  commuting, working, cooking, exercising, volunteering, caring for others, practicing.)
  • Consider the emotions you experience while immersed in the different areas or while performing the activities on your list. (Working–frustration, isolation, endurance. Health–resilience, appreciation.  Family–love, peace.
  • Find those emotions on the emotions list to discover your mode of power while in that activity.

The communications of the soul never cease or let up. They are always active, and when they are ignored, they become more and more imperative. Generally, the purpose of such messages is to help you move from wherever you are into your creator power. The more aware you are of the ways the soul communicates, the more open you will be to hearing those messages.

As we saw last week, communications through the body often take the form of ailments. Communications through the mind usually come in the form of ideas.

Two-track Communication

Most of us are aware the mind operates on both a conscious and a subconscious level. The soul uses each of these aspects of the mind as vehicles for communication, but in entirely different ways. Consciously, the soul uses ideas; subconsciously, messages come mostly through dreams.

Since I am not a dream scholar (and I rarely have dreams that survive waking), I’m going to skim over this one pretty quickly. Carl Jung was the first psychologist to see the correlation between dream images and myths. Because dreams seem to correspond with myths and legends, regardless of a person’s knowledge of the stories, Jung originated the phrase “collective unconscious.”  I suspect that when the soul communicates through dreams, it uses a language common to all souls. If you have vivid dreams, there are dozens of books available to help you interpret this language.

I am much more familiar with the messages that come through the conscious mind, using the language of ideas.

The active human mind generates thoughts, stories, and explanations almost constantly. The quality of this activity depends rather heavily on your emotional state. Emotions from Victim or Interpreter modes keep the focus on why me or how come, and these circular, self-absorbed questions block out soul-level communications. When in those modes, there is a tendency to look for salvation from without and reject the possibility of achieving it from within.

When you become the Observer, your perspective broadens and you see beyond previous limitations. The ideas generated by your mind are informed by the infinite nature of your soul. As you adopt and experience more emotions from partner mode and hold them for longer periods, you begin to recognize your ideas as true messages from your inner being-ness.

Let’s look at some of the forms these messages take,

Open Doors

Victim and Interpreter emotions impose limitations. When in the throes of such emotions, you may feel walled in, shrouded in darkness, beset from every side, tied down, chained, etc. The doors of possibility are always open, but they become invisible to you. As you access more and more of your own power, the barriers fall away, the sun comes out, obstacles dissolve, and you enjoy more freedom of movement. Your ideas start to feel like porch lights illuminating those doors of possibility. And you’re free to walk through any door you choose.

The walls of limitation consist of old events, old interpretations of those events, old reactions, old beliefs, old habits, and the burden of expectations–both your own and those of other people. New possibilities appear when you realize the old events don’t bind you any more, when you stop judging past experiences, when you choose new responses, when you revise your beliefs, when you adopt new habits, and when you release expectations.

Your soul wants to help you in these new endeavors. The more you listen, the more opportunities will present themselves. You can find the message of the soul using the reasoning power of the conscious mind.

Here’s a strategy you might try:

  • Consciously identify an area of limitation. (Money is scarce; health is elusive, you’re in a train-wreck relationship, etc.)
  • Describe the limitation and your experiences with it. As your tell your story, record it in some way. You might share it orally with another person, make a recording of it or write it out.
  • Find the emotions, the judgments and your behaviors embedded in your story. If you choose to share it with someone else, have your listener look for these aspects of it and take notes.
  • Review these emotions, judgments and behaviors and recognize them as indicators of limitation. Imagine them as the sides of a box that hold you in.
  • Think through them and find one or more you’re willing and ready to change. Choose what you want instead. Your new choice becomes an opening in the box you can step through any time you want.

Creative Bursts

Your soul is your primary creative partner. All your talents, abilities, skills, and instincts are well and strong within your soul–and they want to come out and play. Just as you can direct your mind to notice possibilities and take advantage of opportunities, you can open your mind to creative ideas.

Some people receive ideas as naturally as breathing. Some of us have to consciously stop staying, “I can’t.”

As a society, we tend to associate creativity with the arts and culture:  music, painting, poetry, dance, sculpture, photography, fiction, etc. Sometimes we hear of it in terms of creative problem solving, invention or entrepreneurship. I challenge you to consider that your soul communicates with you via creative bursts all day, every day. For instance.

  • You have something to say to someone, and the words come out of your mouth just right.
  • You’re seasoning a soup, and you reach for the basil instead of the dill.
  • You wear a blue shirt instead of a green one.
  • You rearrange your suitcase to make room for an extra pair of shoes.

At a deeper, more intuitive level:

  • You call a friend, and your friend says, “I was just thinking about you.”
  • You’re writing an article or a business paper and you sense what to add or delete.
  • You can tell whether your child needs to be challenged or reassured.
  • You know it’s time to leave a job, even though the financial data suggest holding on three more years.

You may read these last items and think, “That stuff doesn’t come from my mind, it comes from my gut.”  You may be right; it might come from your gut. Recent research is revealing neurotransmitters originate in the intestine. Some scientists are calling the gut the “second brain.”  Whether they come from your gut or your soul, they work through the mind when you are operating in the higher levels of personal power.

The Call to Serve

By way of the mind, the soul inspires us to serve. As the mind observes suffering and need, the soul triggers the ideas. We experience creative bursts of how to ease suffering and resolve problems. Even people deeply immersed in their own helplessness and struggle occasionally receive the nudge to serve–to rescue a hurt animal or soothe a crying baby.

As with all communications from the soul, your ability to hear increases as you access greater levels of your own power. In the areas of your life where you are strongest, your desire to serve will be strongest. In the areas where you experience the most difficulty, your soul will be more focused on helping you grow past your barriers and limitations.

However, because service always furthers growth, your personal growth and the call to serve can be closely intertwined. If some area of your life feels limited or stifled or stagnant, open your mind to the possibility of service, listen, and welcome the ideas that come to you. The communication channel is always open–like a 24-hour radio station. All you have to do is tune in.

These three ways the soul communicates through the mind tend to blend together. As soon as you become receptive to opportunities and possibilities, every open door seems to open fresh veins of creativity, and you gain a deeper desire to apply those ideas in ways that make the world a better place.

Welcome the workings of your mind. Your mind is an essential part of your infinite whole. Celebrate your ability to think, to reason, to solve, or be logical. By the same token, never be afraid of flights of fancy, of dreams, of strange thoughts, or of coming up with answers that don’t follow a clear logic trail. The soul communicates through both inspiration and reason.

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Living With Intention

Sunday, November 21st, 2010

Every moment of every day you make choices.

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

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

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

Early Choices Influence Later Decisions

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

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

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

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

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

Choose to Live on Purpose

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

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

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

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

Listen to Your Resistance

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

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

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

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

Willingness is Key

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

For the past fifteen years or so I have been helping people manifest what they want.  If you would like help creating what you want,  please contact me and let’s chat.  If, after the initial call, you decide to experience a coaching session, the first one is always on me.  Write me at kathy@kathyjacobson.com.

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

The Give and Take of Energy

Sunday, October 31st, 2010

A few days ago, a friend of mine sprained her ankle.  Since we both like to explore metaphysical connections, we ended up discussing pain – specifically in terms of her ankle, and generally in terms of personal power.

She sprained her ankle, and her body experienced pain.  This is the body’s natural, biological response, and it’s important in a survival sense.  Through pain, the body says, “I’m injured.  Attend to the injury.  Don’t ignore it or make it worse.” My friend rubbed a medicinal salve into the injured joint, wrapped it, applied ice and elevated it.

After we spent half an hour speculating about what’s going on in her life that might have attracted the injury in the first place and what lesson there might be for her in the experience, we focused on the energy of pain and its relationship to personal power.  Both of us found my model – the Diamond of Mastery – very useful as a vocabulary for deeper understanding.

Every situation – especially painful ones – provide an opportunity to lose personal power or access it, to extract energy or supply it.  My friend was laying there with her injured foot propped up.  In very simple terms, she had three choices:  be miserable, be neutral, be healed.  We explored the ramifications of each option from a power perspective.

Depleting Power

The most powerless state of being is, of course, Victim Mode.  Those who function at this level believe they have no power and believe there’s no help to found.  Their thoughts, actions and/or emotions reinforce this position.

Being a victim always infers helplessness.  As soon as someone believes they are helpless, that belief becomes their truth, and they become helpless.  They let go of personal power as if it were water and they have no way of holding onto it.  Emotions that reflect helplessness include despair, anxiety, distress, and woe.  Those emotions reinforce thoughts of helplessness such as:  I can’t.  There’s no way out.  This is too hard (or painful, or terrifying) for me to bear. Such thoughts drive them to actions of withdrawal or suffering, such as complaint, blame, anxiety, addiction, isolation, etc.

Being a victim also often presumes innocence – especially from the victim’s point of view.  However, as soon as someone believes themselves free of accountability or complicity they become co-conspirators with their plight.  Thoughts such as I didn’t, I’m in the right, or That’s wrong generate emotions that reinforce strife – contempt, outrage, resentment, blame, guilt, fanaticism, etc.  Resulting actions include retaliation, destruction, oppression, and vengeance.

Misery can take any of these forms.  Misery is like opening a vein and letting your personal power simply drain out of you.

Searching for Power

Until this conversation with my friend, I had never seen Interpreter Mode as a state of searching.  I’ve included such emotions as ambition, desire, yearning, possessiveness and envy in that category, but I hadn’t thought about them in terms of searching for one’s own personal power.  As we were talking about the energy of pain, I could see how moaning, impatience, and unhappiness were not only forms of resistance, but the longing for personal power.  In a way, these emotions say to the injury (or the source of the injury), “You’ve taken away my power and I want you to give it back to me.”

This can apply to any painful situation – lack of money, trouble in a relationship, frustration on the job, an illness.  And although something that’s not whole may have the power to fix itself, it doesn’t have the power to fix you.  Behaviors that reject or resist the situation may actually be efforts on your part to find strength or personal power.  But pulling energy away from something that’s broken will never strengthen you.  Whining, swearing, protesting, lamenting, fuming, moaning or disagreeing may be your cries for help, but they drain away healing energy.  They weaken the injury itself.  You and the situation both lose.

Hoarding Power

Since my friend’s not the type to fret or moan, the discussion to this point was mostly academic.  With the injury so fresh, she was perfectly content to indulge in an afternoon of no expectations.  But she has a job and a home and responsibilities, and it’s easy to think in terms of what’s wrong, of what’s in the way.  We pursued the question of limitations.

How much does any external circumstance limit personal power?  We were able to create a long list of resources we had seen as limited and/or limiting at one time or another.  We agreed time, money, education, health, and energy were the most common, and we realized that when someone feels limited, the most likely reaction is to conserve.  People want to not waste time, save money, preserve their health, budget their energy.  The same applies to personal power – when we feel our power is limited, we try to conserve, to save, to preserve.  To hoard.

But what if there were no limitations?  What if by not hoarding personal power, we not only expanded it but everything else as well?  The more my friend and I played with this idea, the more we realized it actually works the other way around.  Controlling time, saving money, preserving health and budgeting physical energy drain away huge amounts of personal power.  If we could see time and money and health and physical energy as free and flowing and abundant, we’d also have a more abundant supply of personal power.

Observing Power

In the trade-offs between gaining and losing, there’s a mid point of neutrality that’s actually quite powerful.  This is when you remove all resistance and simply be with what is.  I’ve had quite a lot of experience with holding neutrality in times of stress and physical adversity, so my friend agreed to let me coach her a bit around the pain in her ankle.  First we did some calming exercises (Calm and Curious), then I encouraged her to relax any resistance, to ease away from the hurt, to think about the area around the injury that didn’t hurt and let the area of injury simply become empty space.

If resistance drains positive power away from an injury, then non-resistance lets the components of the injury get on with a natural healing process.  When you can simply observe what is rather than label it, deny it, argue with it, or try to control it in some other way, you stop being an energy drag.  Without drag or depletion, every injury heals more quickly.

Directing Power

“So now what?” my friend asked.  “I have to admit my ankle hurts less, but I don’t feel like dancing.”

I imagined a conduit between her and her injured ankle, flowing with energy.  If frustration and complaint draw energy away from the injury, and neutrality stops the flow of energy so the ankle can preserve whatever wasn’t lost when the injury occurred, what would make energy flow back into the ankle and accelerate healing?

Well, probably Partner Power.  So we looked at the list again, and my friend identified three emotions she thought would be most helpful to her:  cheerfulness, appreciation and trust.  She could be cheerful even if she hurt, she certainly appreciated her ankle and how well it had supported her all her life, and she trusted all would soon be well.  I suggested she call up those emotions and direct them toward her ankle.  She agreed that sounded like a lot more fun than worrying about how long it would take to heal.  Every time she thought about her ankle in some limiting way, she would turn off that draining energy and send cheerful, restorative energy toward it.

Reinforcing Power

I suspect that everyone is born with the potential for unlimited access to infinite power.  I also suspect that almost from the moment we’re born we start perceiving limitations.  Few of us are taught to use our thoughts, our actions, our emotions, and our instincts in ways that energize us and expand our potential.

Where you perceive you can, then you can.  And where you perceive you can’t, then you can’t.  Explore the areas of can to discover the components of your facility.  What you find then becomes your guidebook for how to turn any can’t into a can.  And then, the more willing you are to transfer your proven strengths, the more you apply correct principles, the more you practice, the more you will notice change and growth.  Reinforce what works, and what works will work better for you.

Think in terms of giving energy rather than taking it.  The more you give, the more you gain.  The more you take, the more you lose.  This choice exists in every situation – and it’s always yours to make.

For personal help in identifying your strengths and Personal Power, and then translating those strengths into results, please contact me directly.  Email:  kathy@kathyjacobson.com

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Posted in Acceptance, Beliefs, Calmness, Cooperation, Healing, Interpreter Mode, Mind Power, Observer Mode, Partner Mode, Trust, Willingness, personal power | 40 Comments »

(N)Ever Surrender

Sunday, October 17th, 2010

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

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

Personal Power and Guarantee

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

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

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

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

Discernment and Judgment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Choice and Victim-ness

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

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

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

Enjoyment and Attachment

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

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

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

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

Self and Ego

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

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

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

Strength and Guilt

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

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

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

Neutrality and Defensiveness

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

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

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

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

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

The What and The How

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

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

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

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

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

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

Surety

Sunday, September 26th, 2010

Last week I emphasized the importance of conceptualizing what you want (instead of what you have) and then believing the result you imagine is possible.

When you believe something is possible, that belief establishes a surety around that possibility, increases its likelihood.  When you believe something is impossible, that belief establishes a surely which decreases the possibility.

The possibility, in and of itself, is neutral, neither likely nor unlikely, poised in the middle of a scale, yet having no power to tip the scale either way.  The force that tips the scale one direction or the other is belief.  Imagine the scale looks like this:

Impossible < Improbable < Possible > Probable > Inevitable

If you are neutral about a possibility, you sit in the middle of the scale.  More likely, you have a belief and the scale is already tipped in the direction of your belief.

Sometimes when you want something, you start at that middle point where everything is possible.  Perhaps what you want exceeds your knowledge of how to achieve it, but you know other people have reached a similar objective, which means it must be within reach.  Other people stay out of debt, other people weigh the right amount for their height, other people have jobs they love, other people have happy relationships.  Therefore, perhaps you can, too.  In this neutral state, you are calm, steady, interested, mindful.  Your sense of your own abilities allows for the likelihood of success as much as the likelihood of failure.

Sometimes, failure looms larger than success.  Maybe you doubt your abilities, your opportunities, or your luck; maybe you see obstacles or limitations in the way; maybe your experiences have taught you to keep your expectations in check.  Other people may have achieved what you want, but the path ahead seems overgrown with struggle and difficulty and attainment seems improbable.  Just thinking about it makes you tired.

Sometimes the desired result seems impossible, more fantasy than reality.  You’ve never actually seen anyone else achieve that “pie-in-the-sky” outcome, so you doubt the success stories.  Yeah, sure, John and Mary fell in love and lived happily-every-after, just like Prince Charming really saved Cinderella from a life of drudgery.  The sheer impossibility of the dream immobilizes you.

Other times, the scale tips toward attainment.  When you envision what you want, the way ahead looks clear.  You know what to do, you are willing to do it, and you feel confident.  With a good plan, a little luck, perhaps some help along the way, the possible becomes probable.  You proceed willingly and full of hope.

And sometime what you want shines ahead of you like a beacon, strong and bright.  You know you’re aligned with yourself and the universe.  Without conscious effort, your stride forward eagerly; all you have to do is head for it and it’s yours.  Inevitably.

So which comes first?  Your level of belief?  The energy you project?  Your degree of confidence?  The outcome you envision?

Actually, each of these elements contributes to the others.  You can shift your energy, you can reinforce your confidence, you can more clearly envision, or you can relax your doubt and expand your belief.

Belief Produces Results

Some things happen with such regularity and consistency, you know they’re true:  breathing, gravity, magnetism, the phases of the moon, trees lose their leaves in the fall, etc.  No belief is necessary.

Some things you have come to believe over the course of your lifetime and they also feel true.  Of course these things vary from person to person, but consider what you know vs. what you believe about such things as whether your parents love you, how smart (or athletic, or artistic) you are, whether the world is hostile or friendly, etc.

Then there are the things you hope to be true, such as that you will advance in your company, that you will find your soul mate, that your back will stop hurting, that you will get out of debt, etc.  Generally speaking, hope is the factor that sustains desires you’re not quite sure of.

And finally are the things you believe are not true.  This might include practices that make no sense to you, such as astrology, or alternate medicine, or prayer, or self-flagellation.  It might include things about yourself, including what you believe you are not talented in, or capable of, or have the resources for.

There’s an old adage that says, “Whether you believe you can or your believe you can’t, you’re right.”  If you’re willing to review your beliefs, you will find a strong positive correlation between what you believe and your results.

Clearly, if you change what you believe you will change your results.

Belief = Surety

The certainly of your belief about a given possibility, however, is only one of the sureties influencing your results.  There is also the surety of your own personal power.  Just as no two people access their own power in exactly the same way, not everyone comes to trust their personal power in the same way.  I’ve identified four important starting points for believing in your own inner strength.

A starting point means exactly that.  The point at which it’s easiest for you to become calm, recognize the possibilities, and proceed more confidently toward what you want.

As I describe these four starting points, consider your own approach and see which one resonates most with you.

Trust Yourself

You believe in your strengths.  You sense (or know) you have talents, abilities, knowledge, experience, and you know your strengths can (or have the potential to) serve you well.

The more you trust yourself, the more you grow in confidence.  As your confidence grows, you recognize you are competent, smart, inventive, brave.  You realize you can easily transfer a competence (or aspects of that competence) from one situation to another.  As a problem solver, you trust your ability to see the scope, identify the steps, and learn the details as you go.  So there’s no limit to the types of problems you can take on.

You know your strengths – and you maximize them.  You minimize your weaknesses.  You don’t claim to be something you’re not, but neither do you let insufficiencies get in your way.  If there’s something you can’t do, you know someone who can and you’re not afraid to ask.

Trust Your Choices

You believe in growth.  You sense (or know) there are no mistakes.  You rely on the laws of cause-and-effect, knowing every choice simply produces an outcome.  The outcome then produces knowledge, and knowledge produces growth.

As you learn from experience, you gain confidence in your ability to make informed decisions, to take the known variables into consideration, and to do the necessary research.  This empowers you to choose again, proceed into the unknown, and continue to accumulate new knowledge.

Because you look for growth, you take difficulties, obstacles, or mishaps in stride.  Sometimes you may feel as excited about what you’re learning as you are about reaching your objective.  For you, every choice opens the door to adventure, and learning what not to do is as satisfying as learning what to do.

Trust The Infinite

You believe in a higher power (call it God, Cosmic Consciousness, The Field, The Universe, The Source, The Higher Self), and you are willing to (or already do) cultivate a personal relationship with it.

You sense (or know) you are not alone.  The more you trust the influence of The Infinite in your life, the more you look for and practice communicating with it.  You recognize guidance is always available, you stay receptive, and you trust that guidance to ease your way.

In addition to guidance, your connection with The Infinite provides both serenity and protection.  It accompanies you when you take risks, it encourages curiosity and amusement, it provides comfort in times of trial and courage in times of difficulty.  The more you rely on The Infinite, the more you understand your life.

Trust Your Intuition

You believe in your “sixth sense.”  You sense (or know) you gather information not limited to your five physical senses, and you incorporate it (or would like to) into the way you go through life.

You may see this information as coming from somewhere outside yourself, or it feel like a “gut” instinct.  It helps you make connections between disparate things, find unique solutions to problems, understand yourself at a deeper level, and recognize unusual possibilities.

As you gain experience with your intuition, you recognize the importance of neutrality, since prejudices of any kind will skew your insight.  The more you clear away intrusive thoughts, unruly emotions or impetuous behaviors, the more trustworthy your intuition becomes.  Ultimately, your intuition will guide you to the truest intentions, the most rewarding partnerships, and sustainable achievements.

Acquire Surety Through Mindfulness

So, you’ve found your starting place.  You’ve identified the one that resonates with you, and you want to expand your trust level.  Begin by mastering neutrality and stay mindful.  Just as each of these styles of surety can help you access and master your own personal power, they all present challenges along the way.

Beware of pride, ambition, fanaticism, arrogance, or a need for validation.  Be wary of any inner narratives that compare, measure or dispense judgment in any way.  Cultivate neutrality, awareness, generosity and compassion.  Pay attention to your thoughts, acknowledge your emotions, recognize the connection between the energies you generate and your results.  And be willing to take baby steps.  Progress of a slow but sure nature will bring you to the greatest levels of sureness and mastery.

If you would like person help creating the life you want, or mastering your personal power, please contact me.  As I life coach, I help people “move to the next level,” whatever that means to you.  Write me:  kathy@kathyjacobson.com

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Posted in Beliefs, Free will, Neutrality, Possibilities, manifestation, personal power | 1 Comment »

Creative Power

Sunday, July 4th, 2010

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

LAST SUMMER I PRESENTED a workshop on emotional energy. After considering several ways to approach this, I decided to title it Personal Power.

But when I started to publicize it, I discovered a high level of resistance to the very idea of personal power.

As I listened to reasoning behind the resistance, I found two general themes. The first harks back to a statement made back in 1887 by someone named Baron Acton, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Most of us have observed examples of such corruption, whether in extreme cases such as Hitler’s Nazi Germany, or closer to home in domestic situations. When one person (or group of persons) exercises unrestrained control over others, the only result is suffering. The suffering afflicts both abuser and victim – often to the point of destruction.

Perhaps power in this sense can be best understood by such synonyms as dominion, power, authority, rule, force, etc. Quite obviously, nothing good comes from unrighteous dominion, unrestrained power, excessive authority, and tyrannical rule. I contend that the best way to avoid succumbing to that form of corruption is through personal power.

The second form of resistance seems to be a perceived conflict between accessing personal power and surrendering to god. To resolve this conflict, it’s necessary to define the terms. Let’s assume surrendering to god means submission to a higher law and/or living in tune with spirit, or relinquishing the inner restraints that restrict access to spirit. Those exact same meanings can be used to describe accessing personal power. True inner power conforms to universal law and brings you into partnership with spirit.

Let me emphasize I’m advocating accessing power, not acquiring it. You already have power. It’s innate within every human being. Consider that in accessing your power you are, in a sense, also surrendering to it. Either way, you are allowing your power burst into full bloom. You are letting its light guide you to your best good.

So what is personal power?

Personal power is self-mastery. It’s the ability to govern your own energy, to choose what’s true for you, to align with positive results (whatever that means to you), to create your own life, and to manifest miracles.

Why is personal power important?

Because (as far as we know) this life is the only one you’re going to get and you might as well live it fully and joyfully.

In past articles I’ve explored in depth the three energies of thought, action and emotion. I’ve presented five Modes of Mastery and discussed how the energies of the different modes create different results.

I believe these operational modes are universal. No matter who experiences them, the thoughts, actions and emotions or VICTIM mode reinforce helplessness; those of INTERPRETER mode create suffering; those of OBSERVER mode establish calm, those of PARTNER mode enjoy cooperation, and those of CREATOR mode bring oneness. Clearly, the higher energies produce better results.

Your Unique Power

So let’s say, you mostly operate from OBSERVER mode. You stay neutral and when some INTERPRETER emotion pricks you, you simply acknowledge it and release it. With neutrality as your set-point, you often find yourself enjoying PARTNER or CREATOR energy. You participate rather than complain, you imagine rather than dread, you celebrate, love, enjoy, lead, learn, cooperate. You know you can choose love, happiness, tranquility, enthusiasm – and you do. You ask Why not? rather than Why me?

Operating from the higher modes is an essential aspect of personal power. It is the foundation of creation. Self-mastery allows you to consciously create, to live on purpose rather than by accident.

But no two people access their power in the same way. I’ve observed four paths by which people generally make the most of their talents and what’s true for them. They are:

· via the Mind, through thinking.
· via the Heart, through feeling.
· via the Body, through their senses.
· via the Gut (for want of a better word), through intuition.

Today I want to explore two particular aspects of these four paths.

1. Processing Information

You began receiving information while still in the womb, through your biological connection with your mother. Since birth, you’ve gathered information through your senses, through instruction, through formal education, through observation, through repetition, through the conclusions you draw, through extrapolation, and through the energy of others, to name a few.

But two people, sitting in the same room, watching the same scene or hearing the same lesson, can move in opposite directions. One person might pick up on tone of voice and infer a past transgression, the other might hear the high points and leap ahead to a future challenge. A favorite story in my family is when one of my brothers was listening to one of my sisters relate a hilarious experience. All during my sister’s narrative, my brother kept thinking, Wow, it would have been so fun to be there. Only later, as he sifted through the details of her story, did he realize he was there – and it hadn’t been very fun.

If you process information by way of The Mind, you probably want the information you gather to provide truth. You like facts, concepts, ideas, replicable experiments. You assemble information into logical structures. You’re curious about why and to what purpose. Scientists and philosophers are among those who follow the pathway of The Mind.

If you process information by way of The Body, you probably care most about information that contributes to application. You want to know how: How to mix the colors, how to increase your speed, how to maximize available space, how to grow a better tomato, how to increase productivity. Among those who naturally follow the pathway of The Body are athletes, artists of all types and engineers.

If you process information by way of The Heart, you probably care most about information that supports perfection. This isn’t to say you’re a perfectionist, but that you can sense wellness, fullness, trueness, the essential perfect being-ness of whoever or whatever you’re working with. You’re curious about who in terms of “at heart,” at the core. Healers of all disciplines and teachers are among those who follow the pathway of The Heart.

If you process information by way of The Gut, you probably care most about information that supports wholeness. You’re curious about what in terms of what’s possible, what’s next, what’s the key. Among those who follow the pathway of The Gut are inventors and mystics.

2. Overcoming Obstacles

Have you ever been on a ropes course? Obstacles and challenges are constructed from ropes and poles. Participants are pushed out of their comfort zones to surmount heights, cross chasms, scale walls, and cooperate. Most people take on the challenges willingly, hoping to discover new levels of courage, strength, grit, and trust. Occasionally someone will be paralyzed by fear and unable to go on. Some people proceed with eagerness and enthusiasm.

In many ways, life is like a ropes course. Almost every day provides some obstacle, snag, challenge, difficulty, frustration, or accident. Sometimes we know the snag is manageable, sometimes we know we have a safety net, sometimes it’s a challenge we’ve met before and we have experience navigating it. Other time, we’re taken by surprise and we have to find new solutions. Sometimes we’re immobilized, sometimes we proceed with enthusiasm.

Most problems have more than one solution, and different people will resolve them in different ways. The four Paths to Power present four general approaches to overcoming obstacles.

Those who follow the Pathway of The Heart seem predisposed to look for compassionate solutions. They heal, they negotiate, they repair, they work things out. They tend to be extra conscious of the directive to do no harm. In a sense, they love roadblocks out of the way.

Those who follow the Pathway of The Mind look for logical solutions. They identify premises, gather available data, sort through information and put it order, they search out key concepts, and they test for validity. Generally speaking, they think their way around obstacles.

Those who follow the Pathway of The Body like to actively move the obstacle out of the way. As necessary, they’ll learn a new skill, acquire a new tool, put things in a new order, take new action. They will organize, rearrange, dismantle, reassemble, renew their efforts, etc. Basically, they alter roadblocks by doing.

Those who follow the Pathway of The Gut are inclined to dismiss smaller obstacles as of no consequence and see big obstacles merely as challenges. Sometimes they view the solution the same way – as basically irrelevant . Of all the ways, these followers are most likely to leap first and analyze or reflect later. They tend to bypass roadblocks by guessing.

Know Yourself

I’ve often encouraged my clients to intensify their intentions through meditation (even though I don’t meditate in any formal way). Once when I was urging meditation on a musician client, he said, “No, I have to practice.” His firm insistence shifted my thinking in a whole new direction. I realized many of my clients already know what works for them. I realized most people can find their way by instinct, and all I have to do is ask the right questions.

Knowing yourself and your way will provide the following benefits:

· If a way suggested by someone else doesn’t work for you, you realize nothing’s wrong with you. You just need to find the way that is right for you.

· You will be more accepting of someone else’s way. If you’re a thinker, you can stop expecting a logical progression from someone who intuits. If you’re a doer, you can be more patient with someone who patiently heals rather than boldly changes.

· Once you know what works for you, you can apply those techniques to anything you want to create.

· When you master the tools and techniques of your way, you approach life more creatively and less accidentally.

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Posted in Body Power, Gut Power, Heart Power, Mind Power, personal power | Comments Off