Posts Tagged ‘Inner truth’

The Power of “What if . . .”

Sunday, January 15th, 2012

Since I started to see emotion as the key to personal power and to identify the characteristics of different kinds of emotions, I’ve been paying more attention to my own judgment patterns.  In some areas of my life, based on the results I enjoy, I seem to have attained a place of pretty secure neutrality.  Based on the results in other areas of my life, however, I’m clearly still in the struggle.

When I look at the difference in my results, I can see that if I try to use Partner or Creator emotions without first becoming neutral, my efforts are handicapped by my interpretations, by the stories I’ve come up with to explain, to rationalize, to accommodate, or to place blame.  And the strongest way to eliminate judgment is to become the Observer, to employ neutral emotions.

From my own experience it seems the path to personal power is one step at a time.  You can’t simply leap from Victim mode to Partner mode.  If you’re stuck in the mud you have no traction.  You have to achieve the leverage of solid ground, and that’s what Observer mode provides.

An area of challenge for me has been my purpose.  About fifteen years ago, I got a sense of purpose far bigger than I could identify with.  I didn’t deny it exactly, but for at least ten years I wrestled with it, struggled with how, side-stepped it, and tried to make it small enough to reconcile.  Choosing to become a life coach was my first straight-forward, head-on move in the direction of that purpose, but I still couldn’t quite put it into words.  Eventually I came to peace with it as, “I teach wisdom and personal power.”  I stopped fighting it, stopped struggling with it, acknowledged it, and stopped judging myself as insufficient to the task.  After that things got easier.  My coaching practice blossomed, and the quality of my coaching improved.

But something was still missing.  Since coming up with the Diamond Of Mastery and using it as a coaching tool, I’ve realized how much I’ve been in Interpreter mode.  I still doubted my abilities, doubted I was the right person for the job, doubted I knew enough.  Yet I kept trying to leap straight from the mire to the mountain top.  So I started practicing acceptance, willingness, wonder, and courage.  As a result, when I sit down to write, the ideas come much more easily and the words flow.

And this personal understanding of the importance of starting from where I am has given me new understanding of where my clients are and how to help them start from where they are.

How do you measure?

Recently I was working with a long-time client from where she is, which is locked into a belief of good and bad.  She has a long list of criteria for being a good person, and if she can’t live up to that list (no one could) she’s a bad person.

I asked her what it would feel like if there was no such thing as bad or good.  She said it would feel good, easier, but she kept arguing in favor of the measuring stick.

Of course, we’re all in the habit of measuring, evaluating, weighing pros and cons, and trying to make the best choice.  However, we don’t make decisions based on logic; we make decisions using emotion.  (Individuals who have lost the emotion centers of the brain through accident or surgery can’t make decisions.  All options have the same weight to them.)  No matter how much data we collect or how we assess the data we collect, in the end we finally decide based on how we feel.  Therefore, the measuring stick we use to evaluate bad or good will always be subjective – subject to our beliefs, values, stories, interpretations and judgments.  And this is true whether we’re trying to buy a new car, considering whom to marry, deciding what we want to be when we grow up, or evaluating our own self-worth.

Unfortunately, if you’re in victim mode, the emotions you’re subject to are marked by helplessness and produce pain and suffering.  If you’re in interpreter mode you’re subject to emotions that produce struggle.  To create a different result for yourself, choose different emotions as your subjective base for making decisions – about yourself, about your life, about other people, about your relationships with all things.

Imagine what it would be like if there was no such thing as bad or good?  What if you could accept the world simply as it is and other people simply as they are?  What if you could not only accept yourself as you are, but also accept that you have power greater than you know?  What if you could look at yourself and what you want and say, “I am a writer.”  “Í am a smashing success.”  “I am the country’s top cartoonist.”  “I am a healer.”  “I am a perfect human being.”  “I am in partnership with the infinite.”  “I am a creator.”

What if you could acknowledge the truth residing somewhere inside you that recognizes your personal power, even if that required you to acknowledge you’re afraid of it, intimidated by it, don’t know what it means, and maybe don’t have a clue where to start.

Because my client likes to know what’s ahead, because she likes to plan and be sure, she kept asking, “But what would not knowing look like?”  I can’t answer that question.  I don’t know what’s ahead for myself, much less for anyone else.  But all the emotions of Observer mode have that aspect of not-knowing.

Transcend Measurement

Curiosity and wonder are among the most potent emotions when asking What if. . .

  • What if you valued curiosity over certainty?
  • What if you liked surprises?
  • What if wondering what else might be possible was fun?
  • What if being comfortable with the unknown took the pressure off?
  • What if some troublesome reality wasn’t a given?

More possibilities exist than you could ever know, or even imagine.  When you’re in Observer mode, you trust that expanse of possibilities.  You’re willing to say, “No, I don’t know, but I’m willing to find out.

Some of the aspects of life people commonly approach with strong Interpreter tendencies include:

Self-Perception

What if you could look at yourself with curiosity and wonder:

  • “I wonder what it would feel like if I believed I deserved to be successful (or rich, or happy, or whole).”
  • “What if I could love myself unconditionally?”
  • “I wonder what it would feel like if I believed I could sing (dance, build, heal, laugh, fly).”

Habits and Beliefs

What if you could look at your long-time habits and beliefs with curiosity and wonder:

  • “What if I believed I didn’t have to work my guts out?”
  • “I wonder what it would feel like if my emotional connection to this unwanted habit or that detrimental belief just evaporated.”
  • “If I could replace this habit with anything in the universe, I wonder what I’d choose?”
  • “I wonder what it would feel like if I let go of my frustration about ____.”
  • “What if life was easy instead of hard?”

Life Choices

What if you could look at your life choices with curiosity and wonder:

  • “What if I actually have the ability, skills and personal power to follow my dream?”
  • “What if I wasn’t afraid?”
  • “What if I truly knew I’ll be just fine?”
  • “What if I was okay with not being able to see around the next corner?”

The fact is, we can never know for sure the impact of our choices on others or on the future.  We can never know what’s ahead.  We can’t even know if we’ll be here tomorrow, let alone what tomorrow will bring.  Becoming comfortable with not-knowing can be challenging but it doesn’t have to be distressing or scary.

A few months ago, one of my students wanted a visualization she could use to become calmer about the future.  Perhaps you’re familiar with the one I suggested:  While driving at night, you can only see as far ahead as your headlights illuminate.  They only go so far, but they always illuminate the same distance ahead.  My student immediately took the metaphor ever further.  She said, “And if I stop moving, I’ll never discover what’s beyond that limited light beam.  Moving into what’s possible requires that I give the car some gas.”

Accelerate

You may find that with curiosity and wonder you also experience anticipation and hope.

It’s very easy with either anticipation or hope to start getting specific.  If you anticipate a specific outcome or hope for a certain result, you begin to narrow the possibilities.  When you restrict the possibilities, you slide back into Interpreter mode.  Almost automatically, you will begin to spot the difficulties and find the obstacles.

If, however, you stay open and continue to be curious, the scope of possibilities will expand beyond your ability to imagine.  The range of your vision will expand, almost as if you switched your headlights from dim to bright.

Hope from the Observer perspective produces the calm that all will be well.  Anticipation creates momentum toward the unknown future.

Whatever particular area of your life is currently proving the most challenging, consider taking the following steps to move from Interpreter to Observer:

  • Identify the scale by which you’re measuring.  (good/bad; for/against; me/them; easy/hard)
  • Ask yourself, What if this scale didn’t exist?
  • Be open to the possibilities.
  • Anticipate (don’t force) an answer that will amuse, astonish, excite or gratify you.

If you’re struggling with a health issue, maybe you’ll discover wellness.  If you’re struggling with financial problems, maybe you’ll discover abundance.  If you’re struggling with an unhealthy relationship, maybe you’ll discover harmony.  If you’re struggling with your purpose, maybe you’ll discover confidence.

I want to re-emphasize that when you resist, when you lock yourself into your stories, when you refuse to go forward, you create your own struggle.  Deep inside, you know who you are and you know what you are for.  As a first step, be willing to ask, “What if I opened up to that inner knowing?”  “What if I were willing to be all that I can be?”  “What if I let all the possibilities open up for me?”

What if . . .

(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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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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Resistance

Sunday, April 10th, 2011

My model for both coaching and manifestation has three basic parts:  choose, align, receive.  Choose, bring your thoughts, emotions and actions into congruence, and that choice will become manifest.

Conversely, if what you’ve chosen does not become reality, you are either in conflict with your choice or your thoughts, actions and emotions are not congruent with each other.

This can be a hard conclusion to accept.  When we don’t get what we’re trying to manifest, it’s often more comforting to look outward for an explanation:  the economy, the weather, other people, traffic, lack of exercise or poor diet, birth order, astrological indicators, politics, personality type, parents, kids, etc.  And there will always be more than sufficient external reasons why the struggle continues.

Yet no matter how much energy we apply to resolving, or coping with, or conquering the external, the miracle will manifest only when we achieve internal congruence.  The primary challenge will always be dissolving the barriers and obstacles we generate for ourselves.

Of course, we do rarely create obstacles consciously.  You’ve probably never woken up in the morning wondering, “Okay, how can I impede my best good today?”  You’ve probably never gone to bed thinking, “Ah, how satisfying it’s been to keep myself stuck for yet another day.”

Consider that any emotion laden with negative or destructive energy is a form of resistance.  (Refer to Victim or Interpreter emotions on the Emotions List.)  Victim emotions are the most immobilizing.  They are never ambiguous; when in their thrall, you feel powerless.  Interpreter emotions are more elusive.  Sometimes they might nag and chafe and spur you to positive action; other times they lie buried deep within, strangling good intentions with silent tentacles.

Your results are always the best indicator such resistance persists–and there will always be an emotional component.  In the areas of your life where you feel contented and successful, your positive and creative emotions flourish and bear fruit.  But in the areas of your life where struggle persists, so do forms of buried resistance such as ambivalence, confusion, fears, false beliefs, past injuries, etc.

Always assess your results.  If you’re not manifesting what you want, look for the block within.  Perhaps you’re willing to recognize it and release it, yet have no idea where to start.  So let’s consider what you may be dealing with.

Beliefs: Beliefs about the way the world works begin in infancy.  To a baby, everything is fresh and unknown.  As the receptive new brain starts putting the pieces together, it draws conclusions simultaneously with gathering data.

One of the primary goals of a human being, even as a newborn, seems to be resolving the unknown.  We want to know what we don’t know, and we can create answers with very little information.  Once we decide the answer, we tend to adapt further data to comply with the model we’ve adopted.  We take the pieces that fit and say, “Ah, yes, I thought so.”  If a piece doesn’t fit, we’re likely to toss is out.  When we are comfortable with an answer, even if the answer doesn’t serve us, holding on to it is easier than challenging it.

Fears: Where beliefs arise from our efforts to resolve the unknown, fears tend to arise when we can’t.  When looking into the unknown, it’s much easier for most people to imagine the worst than to imagine the best.  Anything you can imagine has creative power.  Imagining the best comes from and/or evokes positive emotions; imagining the worst comes from and/or evokes negative emotions.  It’s always difficult to determine which comes first, the thought or the emotion, but since they become inextricable entwined it doesn’t really matter.  When the unknown looms, dread often follows.  Fear can’t settle in without our permission, except many of the fears that inhibit manifestations took root during the formative years when we didn’t know enough to be discerning.

For instance, a child who overhears parents arguing about money may inhale the fear of disaster radiated by the adults.  With no way to evaluate the validity of the parents’ feelings, and trusting them to know the way the world works, the child associates the emotions with the subject. The parent’s fear of the unknown influences the child’s belief about money.

The fears acquired by way of personal experience can be easier to identify because we often adopt them consciously.  We don’t know what the future will bring–the unknown emerges ahead of us like a great dark cavern – yet we want to be prepared for it.  If we knew the darkness was temporary and on the other side was a beautiful sun-lit garden, we would stride forward confidently.  But we don’t know.  Therefore, we assume it’s just good sense to be ready for any eventuality.  So we prepare for the worst.  If we could stay detached and focus on preparation, all would be fine.  If dread sets in, however, we tend to cringe away.

Injuries: No one gets through life unscathed–from bumps and bruises to dismemberment; from wounded pride to deep emotional betrayal, from minor colds to life-threatening illnesses, we are fragile creatures.  For most of us, the will to survive compels us to heal, to keep going, to transcend, and to prevent such assaults (even minor ones) from happening again.

We bring the past into the present by identifying the circumstances, analyzing relationships, looking for cause and effect, etc.  Once we think we have a clear picture, we put safeguards in place, and then we project the past into the future.  In the past, when A happened, B followed.  Since we don’t want B in the future, we will avoid A at all costs.

Conflicting inputs: If three people witness an event, chances are high they’ll provide three different versions of what happened.  However, when the three people are all in a group and discussing the event, they tend to influence each other to bring their details or observations into accord.  If you are one of the people involved, you may find yourself adapting your version to correspond more closely with the others.  And this may cause you to doubt your own experience.  Did you see what you thought you saw?

This happens all the time, with ideas as well as observations.  When you listen to others more than yourself, you will likely learn to mistrust your own intuition.  This tends to cause confusion,  ambivalence and insecurity.

Erroneous inputs: Information comes in all shades of accurate or false, especially in this era of the Internet.  Lies, assumptions and propaganda are often presented with the assurance of truth.  Closer to home, sometimes people we know and trust mislead us – perhaps casually, perhaps purposefully.  When wrong thinking is represented as truth it causes victimization and injury.  If loyalty to the other person is allowed to further confuse the facts, the injury of the lie deepens, and bitterness, insecurity, dejection, misery, etc. take root.

While understanding the above conditions can be a good way to dismantle them, it’s fully possible to simply dissolve the barriers they create.  Consider the following strategy.

Become the Observer: Getting out of your own story can be very challenging, but if the story itself is keeping you stuck, it’s essential to trade the old story for a new one.  Here are some suggestions:

  • Detach: Take three paces away from your life and watch it from a distance.  See yourself and the other people in your life as characters in a movie.  What do you see when on the outside looking in? Are the behaviors well-motivated and consistent?  Is the dialogue interesting or banal?  Do you want to cheer for yourself?  Can you see the emotions fueling your choices?  What would you advise yourself to do differently?
  • Dismiss judgment:  Everyone in your life is doing the best they can with what they’ve got.  We all operate with some combination of insufficient information, strong beliefs, doubts and fears, past hurts, mis-information, exhortations from others, and ambivalence.  To balance the scale, we all have talents, intelligence, inner strengths, proven abilities, and past successes.  Accept your assets without pride, your weaknesses without judgment, and other people with compassion.
  • Laugh at your resistance:  All forms of resistance gain in strength and tenacity when we take them seriously.  Certainly, you came by them naturally and honestly and you’ve probably done an excellent job learning to accommodate them.  You can still relax and laugh them away.
  • Ignore them:  The less attention you give to impeding beliefs, habitual fears, past injuries, or conflicting inputs the less strength they have.  Refuse to give them a presence in your thoughts.  The more you think about them, the more your emotional attachment swells in response; your emotions give them energy, and when you give them energy, you give them power.  Take away the energy by choosing different thoughts.  Your emotions will follow, and different emotions will create different results.

Choose what you do want: As the observer, you gain an ability to choose, an ability unavailable to you while in judgment.  Think of judgment as a mud hole, keeping you stuck.  When you become the observer, you gain solid ground.  With a solid base under your feel, you can explore possibilities, and you can launch yourself in any direction you choose.

Choosing is an amazingly powerful tool.  If you don’t want illness, choose health.  If you don’t want poverty, choose prosperity.  If you don’t want conflict, choose peace.  If you don’t want confusion, choose wisdom.  Once you have chosen, decide the type of energy that will help bring it into your life, and embrace that energy.  Adopt it.  Make it yours.  Evoke it and live it.

Refuse what you don’t want: Remove what you don’t want from your slate of possibilities.  This isn’t about denying the current situation, or ignoring indisputable facts, or punishing the messenger.  Acknowledge what is, because today it is.

Tomorrow, however, can be different.  What if you decided the old belief could stay in the past?  What if you decided to not let fear create the future?  What if you ignored everyone else’s agitation?  What if you could believe that what you want wants you?  What if what you don’t want simply drops off your radar screen?  Change your mind; change your heart; change your reality.

Sometimes the barrier to what you want can be as simple as an unwillingness to receive.  Of course, this takes us back to the beginning, to the original intention.  If you retain an unwillingness to receive, it’s not a true intention.  Perhaps it’s not true for you, perhaps you believe you should want it, perhaps you’re not willing to release your resistance.  Whatever the reasons, you won’t get what you’re not ready to receive.

If you are willing, open your heart, your mind and your life and invite what you want to come on in.  (If what you want doesn’t accept the invitation readily, you’ve probably got some lingering resistance.  Look for any embedded Victim or Interpreter emotion, and continue working with the above strategies.)

Use a powerful welcoming emotion such as enthusiasm, eagerness or compassion.  Let the emotion you choose well up within you until you can feel the energy humming.  Using that emotion¸ bring what you want into you life with your imagination, and make a place for it.

For instance, if you want peace, and you’ve decided to create it with compassion, infuse compassion into your daily activities and overlay each activity with peace.  View all the people in your life with compassion and imagine them smiling and laughing instead of growling and complaining.  Apply compassion to yourself and imagine harmony with yourself, your tools, your efforts.  Extend compassion to your challenges and let peace reign over the situation.  Project compassion into the future and acknowledge the benefits that will spread out from you to others as a result of receiving peace into your own life.

And finally, be grateful in advance.  Give thanks for what you want as if it were already here, already yours.  Count the blessing that make it possible:  your talents, your intentions, your willingness, the partners and helpers who will appear and ease your way, etc.

And one last, final thing.  Use this phrase often:  “I release all resistance.”  Say it out loud and feel what happens to your body.  Review it regularly and see what happens with your manifestation.

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Recognize Your Truth

Sunday, March 13th, 2011

A while ago, I wrote an article called “What’s true for you?” Today I’d like to expand on that topic by exploring some of the aspects that comprise personal truth.

Your Life

Quite a number of facets comprise your physical life experience. You have biographical data:  name, age. parents’ names, place of birth, place of residence, etc. You have biological data:  height, weight, hair color, and all the other factors governed by your DNA. You have educational experience with accumulated academic knowledge, and you have a job history with acquired professional knowledge.

You have a personal history that includes the places you’ve lived, the people you’ve loved, the illnesses you’ve endured, the accidents you’ve survived, etc. And you also have a personal history that didn’t happen, such as the places you haven’t lived, the schools you didn’t attend, the people you didn’t love, the jobs you didn’t take.

So how many of these facts, figures, choices and experiences are true for you?  How many of them may not necessarily have been true for you, but helped illuminate what is true for you?

Perhaps you’ve worked jobs you weren’t suited for. They helped you learn how important it is to employ your skills, talents and preferences in your work.

Perhaps you’ve loved people who weren’t a good match for you, whether it was the boy in third grade who chased you around the playground every recess, or the cheerleader girlfriend who liked you because you were on the football team, or an emotionally unavailable spouse. They helped you understand yourself, recognize your vulnerable areas, realize what matters to you in a relationship.

You may or may not have grown up in a home that recognized your worth. Either way, what did you learn from the experience?

You may or may not have been given a name that fits you. Have you learned to like it?  Have you changed it?  Either way, what have you learned about self-labeling?

You may or may not be living in an environment that nurtures you. What inner power are you finding in that environment?   What would you like instead?  Why?

There’s an old adage that advises you to bloom where you’re planted.  The wisdom of this advice lies in the opportunities for personal growth provided by the circumstances of your life. Regardless of location, you can make the most of any situation. When you’ve gained all there is to gain, or when you feel the call of another place, you can choose to transplant yourself.

If, however, you uproot yourself before you’ve learned what that situation has to teach, you’ll just take yourself with you. Pretty soon the new situation will provide the same frustrations, challenges, disappointments and pain as the old one.

An exploration of the situations of your life can help you discover ever-deeper levels of who you are. You become clearer about what you want and why you want it. You gain understanding about yourself within relationships.  And you understand the service you can offer to the world.

When your life is true for you, you resonate with it. You experience more peace, better health, greater abundance, and deep inner joy. Choose a life that is true for you, and be true to the life you have chosen.

Your Value System

Many religious apologists claim moral and ethical behaviors derive from a belief in a deity. Atheists who choose the high road believe morality motivates simply because it produces better results than immorality.

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

There have been many teachers throughout history, some religious, some not, who have offered advice about which behaviors and character traits produce the best results. A search on the Internet will produce myriad lists, systems, discussion boards, and advice columns.

These lists of values, virtues, ethics, and qualities are more likely to illuminate what’s out there, what’s possible and what others believe than expand your own self-understanding.

The virtues and qualities that are true for you will pass your own personal tests. Consider the following challenges:

  • You understand what the virtue or quality means to you. For instance, what does honesty mean, or compassion, or temperance, or humility?
  • You observe the value it adds. In what situations does it add value?  Are there situations when it might confuse rather than enlighten?  Is it ever neutral?
  • You decide if it’s worth the effort. To what extent does it come easily to you?  Are you already living it?  Is it difficult for you?  Is some aspect of it is not true for you?
  • You recognize its value to you. Does it strengthen you?   Or do you feel disempowered by it.

No one is born with a fully developed values system – not even the saints; we all have to develop our own. Your personal value system does not include every trait or quality someone at some time has considered a virtue. Very likely it does not even include every quality you’ve been taught to believe is a virtue.

You have a values system, whether you have been conscious of it or not. However, if you’ve adopted one that is not true for you, you will experience confusion and self-doubt. If it is true for you, it will enhance and empower your life.

Your Intuition

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

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

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

Let’s consider each of these rules.

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

Your language. Sometimes you may hear your inner voice as an actual voice speaking verbal words. More often, you will get an idea, or feel the need for caution, or know it’s time to act, or just know one choice is better than another. Sometimes your inner voice uses something you’ve already focused your attention upon to give you a message to yourself. Your work or your avocation may be the metaphorical structure for the lessons of your life. For instance, a doctor who explores caves will think in different images and use different metaphors than a landscaper who knits.

Your worldview. If you think the world is flat, your inner voice will work within that framework in providing you with truth. If you believe people are out to get you, your inner voice must work within that context. If you see the universe as your partner, you inner voice will be able to speak to you with the wisdom of the ages.

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

Your Desires

We live in a time and a society where more choices are more available than ever in the history of mankind. From almost every angle, we are encouraged to imagine, to dream big, to acquire. While this kind of encouragement helps us explore what’s possible, it rarely includes the disclaimer:  “You can achieve anything you want, as long as what you want is true for you.”

Not everything you might put on a Dream List would necessarily be something you truly want, or would work for, or would pay the price for. Your true desires, however, are not only within your reach; they want you as much as you want them.

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

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

One of the ways you can recognize a less-than-true desire is to examine why you want it.

Reasons that often indicate a need for re-alignment with a desire include:

  • If someone else thinks it’s a good thing for you to want.
  • Only to make money or to acquire fame or power.
  • Because it’s tradition.

Such reasons are not stop signs, more like yellow flags. If your desire meets the go qualifications listed above, and you can make someone else happy, or make money, or get famous, or conform to tradition, terrific. Such motivations can easily be within your value system and be true desires of your heart. The important thing is this:  Make sure what you want is true for you, and make sure you can be true to it.

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

Your Service

You serve your world, your community, your fellow human beings, and yourself in many ways. You serve with your attitudes, with your energy, with your talents, with your efforts, and with your intentions. Sometimes you give your time, sometimes your money, sometimes your emotional support.

However, not all of the kinds of service the world needs will be true for you. The world needs doctors, and you might be a musician. The world needs musicians, and you might be tone deaf. The world needs both warriors and peacemakers. Humankind needs both scientists and mystics. Communities need adventurers as well as homebodies. Families need nurturers and breadwinners. You need to give the service that is true for you.

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

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

Choose Congruence

Each of these factors – your life, your value system, your intuition, your desires and your service – can reveal the truth of you to you.

Observe them. Become mindful of yourself. Recognize your emotions, and acknowledge the results those emotions bring into your life. Do some emotions bring your closer to your truth?  Do some put distance between you and who you have the capacity to be?

Quite likely, if you are in misery or struggle, you are not aligned with what’s true for you. Conversely, the emotions that produce calm, cooperation and/or oneness, increase your congruence with your own truth.

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Clarify Your Intention

Sunday, December 5th, 2010

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

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

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

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

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

Wanting What You Want

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

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

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

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

Define Your Terms

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

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

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

Connect With Your Values

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

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

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

Understand Your Motives

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

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

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

Create With Your Emotions

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

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

Make the Commitment

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

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

Expand into Yourself

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

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

Reinforcing Your Intention

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 »

What’s True for You

Sunday, June 27th, 2010

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

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

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

For the following discussion, I’ll be referring often to my Modes of Mastery Model and the Emotions list

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

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

Allowing What’s True for You

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

People are most likely to choose something that’s not true for them when operating from VICTIM or INTERPRETER mode. It’s all about possibilities – or lack of them.

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

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

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

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

Creating What’s True for You

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

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

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

PARTNER emotions produce opportunity

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

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

Your Best Good is Always True for You

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stay True During Fallow Season

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

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

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

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

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

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