Thursday, February 15, 2007

Create Your Life

If money were no object, If fear were no object, what would your life look like? If you were the director of your movie and your budget was unlimited, who would star? Would you be an adventurer or a much sought after sleuth; a dynamic diva much admired throughout the world, a bestselling novelist sought after all around the world for your unique literary perspective, a performer selling out stadiums and hobnobbing with other stars, or a a bejeweled jetsetter rubbing shoulders with princes and kings. Would you be a philanthropist flush with enough cash, resources and willing workers to truly affect the world’s social ills?

Perhaps you prefer a simpler direction. A happy life, surrounded by people who care about your good above all things, a joyous marriage where you are very much in love with and attracted to one another, a deeper more profound spirituality, a successful business with positive cash flow and phenomenal profits or the ability to offer long term assistance to those hurting in your community or town.

Maybe you want to experience true wealth and prosperity in your mind, body and spirit. Many believe that being wealthy is about being rich, but if you are rich but spiritually or physically unwell then you are not truly wealthy because you are unable to live and experience your life fully. I'm sure you’ve heard the stories of people with all the money in the world who still commit suicide or turn to drugs because their minds are not at ease. They are casting about for true peace and prosperity, not just what money can buy.

Regardless to what your desires are, you can achieve them. The first step to doing anything is changing your mind. Creating a new mindset is key. The bible says to take every thought captive. That means to take control of your thoughts. When you take control of your thoughts your life will follow. Where you focus your energies that is what expands. Negative words, feelings and emotions beget negative circumstances. Positive words, feelings and desires beget positive outcomes. Have you ever met someone who is never happy, always had something bad to say about themselves or others or perhaps you are that person. You are never happy and you feel the world never goes right for you and sure as shootin’ it doesn’t go right. What we focus on persists. So the key is to change our focus, craft our thoughts, believe we deserve and are worthy of the good things that we desire and manifest them. Perhaps this sounds like some hocus-pocus but it is not. The bible says to call those things that are not as though they were and that if we believe faithfully the desires we pray for will be ours. Perhaps a note of caution. It’s been my experience that the things we desire should serve the highest good. That doesn’t mean that you can’t want cars or televisions or things like that but you must desire these things in a pure fashion, not to best someone else or to flaunt them. If you are in this type of mindset you are missing a crucial point. There is enough abundance for everyone, so for you to have does not mean that someone else will not have.

Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. To say this another way, faith is believing without seeing. Without seeing the how, the why, the when, we lock in on the belief in what we want to manifest. A tenant of faith is patience. This is the implementation of the Law of Attraction. In a nutshell, like attracts like.

So start to lock in those things you want to achieve. See your life as you would have it to be. Ask for those things you desire, believe that you deserve them, see them as already being yours and be grateful for the blessings you already have. Gratitude opens the door for more blessings.

Sunday, January 21, 2007

Positive Thinking - A Primer

Therefore I say unto you, what things soever you desire when you pray, believe you receive them and you shall have them. Mark 11:24

Only Believe:

Two simple words, most times relegated to Peter Pan and his adventures. However, belief is the corner stone of positive thinking. We must first believe in the possibility of a thing and then the probability of a thing and finally the reality of a thing. Once we achieve this belief and hold it within our minds despite appearances or feelings then we can set about changing our circumstances. The bible verse above is about faith, but what is positive thinking but the implementation of faith. For many people the words positive thinking and affirmations conjure up visions of new age practitioners and crystal packing Wicca’s. But faith by any other name is still faith.

Internal Dialogue:

We don’t arrive at the places in our lives and with mindsets that we have by accident. The things that we internalize create the personalities that we have. Our lives are akin to a harvest. The seeds of doubt, uncertainty and inability that may have been implanted in our minds as we developed grow into weeds that choke off our happiness. To begin root out all the doubts and misgivings we harbor about ourselves, the first thing that has to change is our minds. We hold truths about our selves to be self evident based on years of internalization. But as it turns out many of the seeds that have grown into the weeds that are choking off our lives were planted by errant words or misguided individuals. When someone makes us feel dumb or inadequate or incompetent at our most vulnerable then we begin to internalize those ideas about ourselves and before long we are living our lives as if those labels fit us. Many of us grow into adult hood with those labels or feelings lurking just below the surface. No matter how much or how little outward success we achieve we are never quite living the lives that we could because our psyches have been branded. Have you ever wondered why some people with seemingly perfect lives aren’t happy? Perhaps the reason is because their inner sanctum is in turmoil. Who they believe they are bears little resemblance to what people see. The beginning to achieving internal balance is to modify our internal dialogue. Many times we condemn ourselves based on nothing more than the words of others. We don’t test the efficacy of their statements. We simply buy into them and live accordingly. So how do we break down years of faulty programming? Well I’m glad you asked. This is where affirmations come in. An affirmation is a positive key that you use to unlock the potential that lives within you.

Repetition:

For along time I knew about affirmations but I didn’t really understand how to make them benefit me. I would say them for a while but without true conviction or belief. My mindset was so ingrained that whenever I spoke something positive to myself my inner being would deny it. For instance, if I said to myself “I am a winner” and what would come back to me “no you are not”. I learned that in order for affirmations to be successful that I had to say them until I believed them. Chipping away at years of faulty programming was and is no easy task. Everything within us wants to remain at the status quo. Any upheaval to the current program is dispatched with haste. This is why perseverance and repetition is so important. For many of us we didn’t get to be the people we are overnight and we aren’t going to abracadabra and change ourselves. However, as time goes on we become more open to positive self talk. There begins the road to truly being able to embrace a life of positivity and abundance and more importantly being able to truly enjoy it.

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Things You Should Know

1. You have value

2. You are strong

3. You are smart

4. You are blessed

5. You opinions are valid

6. No one defines your success but you

7. Your voice should be heard

Believe in you

Love you

Accept you

Saturday, January 13, 2007

My Mom

mymama
mymama,
originally uploaded by demetria2.
This is a picture of my mom when she was about 23 years old. I think she may have been pregnant with me. She died five, almost six years ago now. I miss her tremendously. Time heals everything but just when you think you've got it licked something will happen and a mother's voice is what you need. Making a move to pick up the phone or to send an email only to realize that she's not there. Our relationship was fraught with drama but there was nobody on this earth that I loved more. I know not every parental relationship is great but really make an effort to appreciate what you have because all too quickly it's gone.