I got an idea this morning that came in the form of a question that popped into my head. “What’s it like being a millionaire?” Many personal development teachers, including Abraham-Hicks, talk about the value of acting as-if and of focusing on your life as you want to live it more than you do on how it is now. So when this question popped into my head, I decided to spend a little time writing in my journal and answering the question. Some very important ideas came out of this little exercise, which took me all of 10 minutes, and I’d like to share them with you.
The thing that struck me as I wrote was that the overall flavor of my life as a millionaire was not that different than it is now. I just had nicer stuff and more time to enjoy it. But I still woke up. I still spent some time writing in my journal and visualizing. I still made coffee and had breakfast. I wasn’t spending my time trying to figure out how to spend my money, which is what I might have done when having more money was all I could think about. The feeling was something like the realization Dorothy has at the end of The Wizard of Oz, that everything she really wanted was right in her own backyard. My lifestyle as a millionaire doesn’t start when I have the million dollars. It starts with habits I’m forming now. It starts with how I’m thinking and feeling and acting now.
So what I decided to do was to go through what I imagined in my “ideal scene” and write out some practices I could implement right away that will serve me in achieving my goals. One of them is the idea of lying in bed for a few minutes and being grateful. I have been doing this for just a few moments a day, but I decided to make this a real discipline because, for one thing, the time when we are just waking up is one of the most creative times for us. So if I spend some time giving thanks and thinking about my day, visualizing it as I would like it to be, this particular time is one of the best times to do it because my conscious mind is not in the driver’s seat yet.
Another idea was to create as beautiful and pleasing an environment at home as I possibly can. I don’t have to be a millionaire to do this. I just have to apply myself. Let go of clutter. Focus on the things in my home that are especially pleasing and meaningful to me and let go of the things that aren’t so pleasing. Catherine Ponder talks about this in her book The Dynamic Laws of Prosperity. In doing this, I am giving my subconscious mind more room to work and more inspiration to nourish it. I know that these two ideas alone will make me feel better and allow me to be more attractive in allowing the Universal Forces to come to my aid in accomplishing my goals.
But perhaps the most important lesson (and one that I know I’ve heard before and need to remind myself of) is the value of following my hunches. If I hadn’t decided to take the time today to answer that question, I would have missed out on something important. And as I prepare for the rest of my day, I can feel good in knowing that I listened to that little voice inside that is conspiring to help me.
I know that I’m going to be doing this little exercise again because it feels good and I have learned from it. Maybe you’d like to give it a try. If you’re already a millionaire or if you are focusing on other goals, just use them instead of the idea of being a millionaire. See for yourself that acting “as-if” has real benefits in the here and now.
My friend and teacher Karen Curry told a story recently about a young man, the son of some friends of hers, who had passed away a year ago of leukemia. Even in the midst of the horrific effects of the disease and its treatment, he still maintained a positive attitude and was (and still is) an inspiration to those around him. I am pasting Karen’s blog post below. Please read, and if you feel inspired to take action in any way in this young man’s honor, I know you will feel even better for it. I feel great just sharing it with you!
By the way, did you know that gratitude is one of the highest vibrations there is? And also that the more gratitude and love you express, the faster the things you are wanting can come to you?
Today, October 22, 2008, is International “It’s All Good!” Day.
International IT’S ALL GOOD DAY is a special day in honor of my dear friends Martin and Connie Jordan’s son, Andrew, and the 1st anniversary of his passing. Andrew crossed over last year after a four-month battle with leukemia.
Even before his illness, Andrew had an amazing positive attitude and love of life. He was an inspiration and continues to be from the other side.
Andrew was diagnosed July 11, 2007 with AML Leukemia. During his nearly 4 months at All Children’s Hospital, he kept his attitude of “IT’S ALL GOOD!”, even when he got injections of chemo shot into his spine a few times a week. The hospital staff and patients regularly gathered in Andrews room noting that his energy was always calming and uplifing.
If a 16 year-old young man could keep his positive attitude while enduring excruciating pain, than so can we, for at least one day!
Andrew’s greatest desire was to touch, teach and inspire people all over the world. On the anniversary of his passing, we decided to do something to help Andrew keep his spirit and his legacy alive.
So, on Oct 22, 2008, in honor of Andrew, I encourage you to set the intention to consciously keep a positive mindset, no matter what. Smile at a stranger, hold the door open for someone. Be a part of the goodness that flows between us as Divine Siblings. Every chance you get, notice the Good that surrounds you! Remember that you will be joined today by many people around the world celebrating Andrew’s life and IT’S ALL GOOD DAY!
In honor of IT’S ALL GOOD DAY, I invite you to join me in a special project. I have a special 18- year-old friend, Sarah Parker, who has volunteered six months of her life to work with orphans in Nepal.
Sarah recently emailed her Dad and asked him if he could send warm hats, scarves and flea powder for the children. If you would like to help Sarah and her Dad keep the orphans warm, I invite you to send childrens hats, scarves, art supplies (especially pens and paper…we take for granted how lucky we are to be able to write anything whenever we want…) and anything else you’d like to share with the children to me:
Karen Curry
5321 Park Ave. South
Minneapolis, MN 55417
I will be giving Sarah’s Dad your donations to send in a package to Sarah on October 31, 2008.
If you would like to donate money instead, I can make your purchases for you:
I have an Inspiration Notebook. It’s a three-ring binder where I have pictures of places I want to visit, people I want to emulate and material things I want to attract. In this notebook is a picture of the Spanish cellist, Pablo Casals, along with a quote by him. It reads:
“Each man has inside him a basic decency and goodness. If he listens to it and acts on it, he is giving a great deal of what it is the world needs most. It is not complicated, but it takes courage for a man to listen to his own inner goodness and act on it. Do we dare to be ourselves? This is the question that counts.”
As I was looking at this picture and quote this morning, I was inspired to learn a bit more about Casals. I found this wonderful video on YouTube, which I think says more about him than perhaps any biography can do:
Whatever one may think of his politics, his personality or his personal life, what I feel from his words and from his music is a great understanding of people and of the soul. For instance, here’s another quote:
“The love of one’s country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border?”
Casals lived through the Catalan fight for independence and through the Spanish Civil War. Opposed to Franco, he spent the rest of his life away from Spain. His understanding of love being without borders was undoubtedly hard won. But when I listen to him play, all of the circumstances of his life, while informing who he was and how he played, come together into something more.
This is something I strive for in my own life: to live it in such a way that it becomes something more than circumstance, but speaks through the music of the soul to others who may need to be reminded of Who We Really Are. To flow with the Divine Symphony every, every day.
“The child must know that he is a miracle, that since the beginning of the world there hasn’t been, and until the end of the world there will not be, another child like him.”
Casals reminds me that the child he speaks of is still inside me and each one of us. That child just needs to be remembered and honored. If you are a parent or grandparent, it’s safe to assume that you want what’s best for your child. What about the child in you? What about wanting what’s best for him or her? I think that in taking time to figure that out and to do something every day to nurture that child, we are tapping into the inner goodness that Casals speaks of.
Abraham-Hicks says that there is nothing more important than feeling good. I think that feeling good is allowing that inner goodness that we are to flow through us. And this, as Casals says, is what the world needs most. You think about that.
I recently came upon a video that made me stop and think. While I found it to be hilarious, it got me thinking about how I hang on to so many old stories about myself and how letting go of them can be as simple as I allow it to be. Before I go on about this any more, take a look for yourself:
Beliefs and behaviors are habits of thought and action that get established over time through repetition, yes? So if I’m going to change them, it’s not really just a matter of stopping the old belief or behavior but also of replacing it with something more pleasing — kind of like giving a toy to a baby so they’ll give you the car keys they’ve been gnawing on. Let’s face it. We do things because they feel good. At least they start out that way. We’re getting something out of them, otherwise we wouldn’t do them.
So if we’re going to change them, we need something that feels just as good or better than what we want to replace. For example, let’s say I have a belief that I’m not worthy of success. It’s not always there. I have my ups and downs with this idea. But on one particular day, I’m feeling really low and this belief is just eating away at me. What can I do in that moment? I can choose to take a walk. Call a friend. List all my accomplishments up to this point in my life. I can do a Sound Clearing Exercise. The point is, I need to do something to counteract the not-so-great-feeling. Of course, I could choose to wallow in it for a day or two, but in the end, in order to come back to Who I Really Am, I need to let go of that belief that is hurtful to me and take an action that affirms who I am.
One of the mottos of Twelve Steppers everywhere is One Day at a Time. Changing limiting beliefs and behaviors is accomplished one moment at a time. While this may seem daunting in the face of truly addictive beliefs and behaviors, taking actions that support us become positive habits that really feel good. And they’re infectious. My husband is big on taking walks to clear his head and now this is something I do often, myself. He also does this little thing of blowing on my head when I’m not sure how to resolve something, as if he’s blowing all the cobwebs away. Not something I’d do with anybody else, but it’s endearing, all the same.
So instead of just Stopping It, the idea is to keep going, but in a direction that feels better. Even just a little bit. As Abraham-Hicks says, “The better it gets, the better it gets.” In other words, by the Law of Attraction, the more we focus on something, the more of that thing will come to us. So it makes sense to learn how to ease out of habits of belief and behavior that don’t feel good and into ones that do. It’s as simple as finding thoughts and activities that please us. That’s something easy to start doing today.
Along with millions of others, it seems, I’ve been reading Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth and attending (or at least attempting to attend) the online class on the book that’s being given by Oprah and Eckhart Tolle. One thing I’ve noticed in my own life is that whenever I commit to making a change in my life, I seem to run into situations that call up my deepest fears around that issue so that I can heal it on a deeper level.
For instance, I have been having some interpersonal challenges with a group I do some volunteer work for. What I realized, when I was able to just sit with all the feelings that came up in dealing with these “difficult” individuals, was that the feelings were really based on much earlier interactions with my parents. I should also say here that probably the biggest thing that helped me to be able to see this was the fact that I got very sick with a cold and all I could really do was rest while dealing with the physical symptoms. It’s interesting to note how my body was working in my favor, forcing me, in a sense, to rest and reflect so that I could understand what was at the root of the challenges I was experiencing.
Anyway, when I realized that the interpersonal challenges were being driven by these old emotions, I was able to let them go and see them in another light. Eckhart Tolle’s book, A New Earth,really helped me with this, because I was able to see how my ego was invested in making the folks I was having the challenge with “wrong” and how that has been keeping me upset and unable to see a solution. When I realized this, I was able to let go of the feelings that no longer served me and to see them with the compassion they were crying for.
I use different modalities for these kinds of troubling emotions. What I find especially helpful is to use what I call sound alignment. All this entails is feeling the emotion, asking where it is in my body and then visualizing what it would look like as a physical presence in my body. Then I ask what it would sound like if it could make a sound (and believe me, your emotions do make sounds!). Then I just make that sound whenever I feel that emotion or think about whatever has been troubling me. This helps me to release those feelings from my body using sound and helps me to feel better a lot faster.
Other things that help include EFT, physical exercise and also listening to music that either aligns with the emotions I’m feeling or lifts me above the emotions I’m feeling. Since everyone’s tastes are different, you may need to experiment a little to find what works for you, but just the process of looking for the “right” music for you should help get you out of the hold of whatever emotions may be confronting you.
To find out more about how sound can help you roll with the tough stuff, use the Contact Form on the Contact Me page to schedule a free consultation. The clearer each of us becomes, the better life on Earth will be for all of us. Part of my commitment as a coach and sound healer is to help create a better world, one person at a time. I am starting with me and I’m starting now!
Have you ever come up with a new way of doing something and then shared it with a friend or colleague, only to have them tell you all the reasons why it wouldn’t work? Or worse still, why their way of doing things would work so much better for you if you were just smart enough to use it? Depending on how close this person is to you, it probably stung a bit, didn’t it?
I have come up against my share of this sort of thing and what I have come to realize is that most of us have developed our own ways of doing things that we’re very attached to. If they didn’t work for us, we probably wouldn’t keep doing them that way, right? (Well, not in all cases, but bear with me here.) Nothing wrong with doing what works, I always say.
But what if I got an idea that was my own unique spin on somebody else’s idea and — giving them full credit for the original one — I wanted to use it to assist even more people? You wouldn’t think the original inventor would have a hard time with that, would you? Well, sometimes they do. And when they do, you can either let it stop you or you can continue to follow your inspiration because you know in your heart of hearts that it’s a good idea. You know your heart. You know your intentions. And you know that, whatever the reason is, the inventor doesn’t get it and may never get it.
Some of us are really tempted to just chuck the whole thing out the window at that point. Some of us do. But I’ve noticed that the folks who are successful in every field of endeavor have all come up against those in authority who disagreed with them at some point in their careers, and those that we remember are remembered because they had the courage to work around those who didn’t understand or appreciate their views. I remind myself of Christopher Columbus, the Wright Brothers, Henry Ford and those brave souls like Copernicus and Galileo.
I include Galileo in the mix as well because, even though he eventually recanted his views and submitted to the power of the Church, you have to admire the man for even attempting to express his viewpoint at all in the face of the Inquisition. And not only that, he was creative about it. After all, “He that fights and runs away, may turn and fight another day; but he that is in battle slain, will never rise to fight again.” (Tacitus)
Actually, it occurs to me that when I encounter obstacles — whether they be in the form of technical challenges or in the form of criticism from people I would hope to have support from — it usually means I’m onto something Big. It’s time to hunker down. Time to stick to the trail. Time to really tune in and listen closely to what my own heart is telling me. Opinions are like noses: most everybody has one. Technical challenges mean you’re attempting to go forward into unknown territory.
It’s not grandiose to say that each time one of us chooses to go past the obstacles and opposition — on whatever playing field we’re on — we are creating a new benchmark for humanity. So to those who are told they will never walk again and who walk again, to those who are threatened with death for expressing their viewpoint, as well as for those who are merely criticized, to those who struggle against their own inner demons and those who face outer ones, I say, “Walk on through the Unbelief! You cannot know what ripples your steps may cause.”
Robert F. Kennedy put it this way in a speech he gave at the University of Capetown, South Africa: “Let no one be discouraged by the belief that there is nothing one man or one woman can do against the enormous array of the world’s ills — against misery and ignorance, injustice and violence… Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation…
It is from the numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man or a woman stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he or she sends a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”
There’s no doubt about it. Life comes at us at the speed of light. I’m not a rocket scientist, but I know that’s pretty darn fast. And I also know that my own life seems to be happening faster and faster, too. With all the ways to receive information — radio, TV, Internet, CDs, mp3s, videos, DVDs and print publications — it’s no wonder that many of us suffer from information overload.
This is especially true when it comes to personal development. I am admittedly a self-help junkie. I’m always reading some new book about how to make my life better, or listening to a meditation recording or watching an inspirational DVD. The choices are almost overwhelming. Subliminal recordings. Music. Meditations. Toning. Yoga. Journaling. Visualization.
But lately I’ve been feeling the need to simplify. A lot.
You see, what I realized is that while all these things are great ways to help me learn and grow, they are nothing compared to the innate wisdom I already possess. All the books and videos and CDs are only tools to bring that out. They can’t do it for me, no matter what astonishing testimonials they offer.
So I decided to kick it down a notch and just focus on doing what feels good in the moment for my morning and evening routine. I let go of the need to use every personal development tool I have every morning before I start my day. (smile) And while I do still use my meditative music sometimes, I don’t feel the need every day. It’s just fine with me to let go of this feeling that the latest whiz bang personal development tool is going to take my life to the next level.
You see, I really do believe that I have the innate wisdom to get where I want to go in life. And I believe that’s so for everyone. Where all the tools come in is in allowing assistance in becoming who I came here to be. Assistance may come in the form of working with a coach or mentor. It may come in the form of a book or recording. Or it may come in the form of working with my Divine Team. (”What’s a Divine Team,” you may ask. More on that some other time.) In whatever form the assistance comes, it is only that: assistance.
You may have heard the saying about giving someone a fish and you feed them for a day. Teach them to fish and you feed them for a lifetime. Relying on one particular tool or, in fact, relying on anything outside the wisdom of Spirit, is like relying on someone else to give you food. But when you know how to feed yourself by developing your spiritual wisdom, you will never be hungry again. One thing is for sure. Tuning in to wisdom is like riding a bicycle; once you learn, you never forget how. And trusting my spiritual wisdom is turning out to be even more fun without all the bells and whistles.
I have been singing my whole life. Quite literally. From the time I was very small, I felt singing connected me to the Divine (still do, in fact). I’ve listened to a lot of singers and I love a lot of them.
But every so often, I am struck not just by a voice or a song but by what someone captures in a moment with their voice, with their being. It is impossible to describe when that happens. I have felt it myself in rare moments. There is a silence that falls between you and your fellow humans afterward and you know IT has happened — that ineffable sense that a great chord has been struck somewhere and no one who was there is ever the same again.
Yes, I know, I know — this was a singing contest, replete with Simon Cowell glaring from the judge’s box and Mum standing nervously in the wings, with the crowds totally primed to love this little girl. Got it.But when the camera catches this child’s eyes as she’s singing, all I see is a little girl — not someone preening for the camera. She’s just a little 6 or 7 year old, complete with missing front teeth who is absolutely, incredibly herself. And she is Divine. More than just her singing, which is beautiful — sheis beautiful in her completeness.This is what happens when we let go and just Be. This is the music that happens when we do that.I know I am a different person because of Connie and I will never forget her. Read more
, that everything she really wanted was right in her own backyard. My lifestyle as a millionaire doesn’t start when I have the million dollars. It starts with habits I’m forming now. It starts with how I’m thinking and feeling and acting now.
After all,