The Power Of Sitting

This morning, Tim and Ducky and I went on our walk, as usual.  It was a slightly drippy morning—a few squalls moving through and the leftovers from yesterday’s steady rain dripping from the trees.  We had a great hour and ten minute or so walk and were heading back to the car.

Tim reached into his pocket for Ducky’s leash.

It was gone.

The leash we carry in the forest is a simple nylon lead that Ducky’s grandpa (my stepdad) gave her for Christmas.  It’s a John Deere leash.  My dad got it because he has a John Deere riding lawn mower that he treats like a treasured sports car and a John Deere hat that he loves to wear (he’s 80 years old—it’s his idea of hip attire).

The leash was perfect for walks because it was small and tucked into a pocket and was just enough to control her at the start and end of our walks, at the trailhead near the street.

When we realized it was missing, Tim said he and Ducky would retrace our path and try to find it.  One pass through the whole forest takes about half an hour at the pace we usually walk.  Tim can go faster (since my ankle injury, I don’t move the way I used to), so I planted myself on a bench in the forest clearing and waited.

The bench, by the way, is lovely.  It’s a wooden bench with a verdigris cast iron rose-patterned back.  It bears a dedication plaque that reads, “Hilda Marion Glover, 1924-2007, Sit and Hear the Silence.”  The greatest gift we can expect from life, I think, is to be loved as much as someone obviously loved Hilda Glover.

I was having a little trouble finding a feel good place before I sat on the bench … for reasons not worth going into (they come under the heading of NI).  But as I sat there, an umbrella shielding me from the tree’s drips, my ears tuned into the forest’s pattering music, I felt myself finding alignment with the greater part of me—my nonphysical self.

I started playing out virtual scenarios in my head.  I ran them like little movies:  my agent calls on Tuesday to tell me she finally read my book, loves it, and plans to start submitting it to editors this week; a different agent calls and tells me she loves Puppies Interrupted and manages to sell it quickly, to the same editor who worked on Marley and Me, for a six-figure advance; Tim wins a lottery Tuesday evening, and we go see an attorney the next day to find out how best to handle the money; we move to Oregon and fix up an ocean-view house; we take a trip down the coast in September to celebrate the day Tim proposed, and he plays the Pebble Beach golf course ….

The longer I sat there visualizing these wonderful scenes, the better I felt.

Once in awhile, I’d find myself feeling not as good.  I’d check what I was thinking and realize my mind had wandered back into “what is” instead of “what I want.”  I’d poke my mind, and move it on to something better.

I sat there for 25 minutes.  Suddenly, Ducky burst from the trees and tore down the path toward me.  We had a tail-wagging reunion.  Tim said he didn’t find the leash.

We walked the circuit together again (Ducky got a 2 hour and 15 minute walk this morning) and still didn’t find the leash.  Someone must have picked it up.  Sigh.  I hope they enjoy it.

Tim said maybe it was a sign.  When we move to Oregon, we plan to get Ducky an Oregon Ducks (University of Oregon) leash, so maybe we lost this one to make way for the other one.  It’s a nice theory.

I miss the leash, but I enjoyed my sit.  Because I had nothing else to do while I waited for Tim, I really had a chance to focus my thought.

I wonder whether just sitting and finding scenarios that feel good is more productive than DOING things that don’t feel good.

I’ve heard The Secret gurus say that you can’t sit around waiting for something good to happen.  One of the speakers/writers quoted in that book (I forget which one) says that if you sit around waiting for money to come, you’ll find yourself sitting on the curb, homeless.

Abraham-Hicks might take issue with that.  They say that action is great, when it’s inspired, but action isn’t necessarily required to get what we want.  It’s not what we do. It’s how we’re aligned.

I was aligned in the forest today.  I could feel it.

I want to feel like that more often.

I’d like to have the courage to do that instead of doing the logical things to make money.

I’m moving closer to that courage (thanks in large part to a great new friend who sends me wonderful, encouraging e-mails—in fact, I need to add that to my “I love …” list:

Paz’s e-mails

Maybe my new motto needs to be “Sit and Hear the feel good thoughts.”

What If It’s Easier Than We Think?

Few people have tried harder than I have.  I’ve been charging after writing and financial success for two decades.  I’ve written millions of words.  I’ve amassed over 2000 rejection letters.  I’ve sold short stories, poetry, greeting card copy, essays, columns, books, and e-books.  I’ve written web articles, newsletters.  I’ve build dozens of websites and free reports and e-zines.  I’ve taken thousands and thousands of dollars worth of training and courses, not to mention the thousands more I spent getting my B.A. and law degree ….

My point is that I haven’t been sitting around on my currently rather ample ass all my life.  When I have a problem, I don’t whine about it—I DO something to try and solve it.  When I want something, I don’t just daydream about it.  I go after it.

Ever since I started selling my writing, I’ve met a lot of people who say they want to be writers.  It’s amazing the number of people who want to write.

Humans love to ask each other, “So what do you do?” [translation:  how do you make money?]  Back when I was a lawyer, when I answered that question with, “I’m a lawyer,” no one ever said to me, “I’ve always wanted to be a lawyer.”  In fact, what I usually got in response to that answer was a lawyer joke … how many lawyers does it take to…….  Anyway, after I became a published author and I answered that question with, “I’m a writer,” at least half the people I met (or more) said to me, “I’ve always thought I had a book in me,” or “I’ve always wanted to be a writer.”

A few years ago, I made a new friend who told me she wanted to be a writer but after trying it, she got discouraged with the rejection.  I asked, “How many rejections did you get?”

She said, “One.”

I just stared at her.

She said, “I don’t take criticism well.”

No kidding.

So this woman wanted to be a writer, but she spent her days surfing the internet and reading books.  She actually had some talent (I read some of her stuff), but she never did anything with it.

When she asked me for advice, I said, “Write.”  If you want to be a writer, you have to WRITE, a lot.

Hardly a day goes by that I don’t write.

I know I’ve wandered off course, here, but I do have a point.

I have tried HARD to achieve the success and financial freedom I want.  I have made goal lists, created vision boards and binders, written letters to God, angels, and the universe.  I have visualized and affirmed.  I have read literally hundreds of books on how to have a great life.  I have WORKED to get what I want.

And here I am with dwindling funds, not nearly the success I’ve desired, and I’m finally realizing that the secret to getting what you want may not just be visualizing it then going for it.  The secret might be just as easy as what Abraham-Hicks says it is:  feel good.

A couple days ago, the Abraham-Hicks quote was:

“There isn’t anything that I cannot be or do or have, and I have a huge Nonphysical staff that’s ready to assist me, and I’m ready.”

I’m beginning to think that I’ve been underutilizing my “huge Nonphysical staff.”  While I’ve been slogging along with my nose to the grindstone and my eye on the ball (and as my stepfather says, “How is anyone supposed to get anything done in that position?”), my Nonphysical staff has been playing volleyball on the beach and drinking fruity cocktails with little umbrellas in them.  I’ve been trying to do all this stuff myself.  How dumb is that?  It’s like the CEO of Boeing trying to build the airplanes while the engineers and machinists build mobiles out of rivets.

As I’m going after freelancing jobs, I’m getting this sense that I’m doing it again—putting in the hard work.

Abraham says that it doesn’t matter what you’re doing—you have to “get easy” about it.

So as I find myself starting to obsess over DOING the right things to get the work I want (actually I don’t want the work at all—I have so many other things I’d rather be doing; I want the MONEY), I am catching myself and wondering, what if it’s easier than we think? What if this whole nose to the grindstone, pull yourself up by the bootstraps (I don’t even HAVE bootstraps … or a grindstone for that matter), “no pain, no gain” crap that our parents, teachers, and the media has brainwashed into believing is just plain wrong?

What if it really is easy?

What if being easy, feeling good, is all it takes to have what you want?

The other day, a good friend of mine said to me, “Well, you know you can’t just sit around feeling good about something and expect it to come to you.  You have to DO something after you feel good.  That’s what The Secret said.”

I said, “Mm hm.”

But I don’t KNOW this.  In fact, I’m starting to think the whole DOING is highly overrated.

Of course, I don’t feel totally confident about this, which is why I’m doing the freelance job search.  But I AM doing it with a different attitude.  I’m still telling it like it isn’t.  In my mind, I’m a lottery winner, a very happy, free lottery winner with all the time I need.  I’m looking for things that are FUN to do.

This morning, after I slept in until nine (heavenly), I got up and walked in the forest for an hour and a half (more heavenly).  I watched Ducky play with her friend, Dixie (if you don’t smile when you see happy dogs playing, you might want to turn yourself into NASA and get tested for alien infestation).  Tim and I made whole wheat pancakes for breakfast (which we ate about noon).  Then our friend, Lyn, called and asked, “Can Ducky come out to play?”  We met her and her dog, Jake (Ducky’s best friend), at the park and watched them play for a half hour.

Now Ducky is snoozing on her bed in front of the fire.  Tim and I are playing Scrabble.  Outside, the day is peaceful and crisp.  I’m totally and completely relaxed because I’m a lottery winner (in my virtual reality).

This is the experiment, and I am ready to prove my hypothesis:  feeling good (the human equivalent to tail wags) is the secret to getting what you want.

I have sent my Nonphysical staff out to bring me the physical money that matches my lottery winner state of mind.  And if it’s going to take a little time to get that, they can bring me a freelance job to keep Ducky in dog treats until the REAL winnings come in.

I am the happy executive of my life … ready to move onto EASY street.

And The Prime Murder Suspect Is ….

The lab is still closed, barred by crime scene tape now.  All that’s left of Ms. Feel Good is a chalk outline on the floor.

At the moment, the murder suspects are Anger, Fear, and Pathetic … oh, and Too Much Left Brain is in the running too.

Here’s where my left brain has hung me up:

In order to believe in this experiment, to start it up again and stay committed to it, I have to believe in the premise underlying the experiment.  Like I’ve said in past posts, I don’t have all the time in the world to mess around with this.  I have two months, and I need to use them well.

So if I’m not going to use those two months to do the logical things—i.e, DO (take physical action) whatever it takes to bring money in, I have to believe that the nonphysical path of feeling good to align myself with source energy to vibrate into a match with what I want (ala Abraham-Hick’s teachings), is a viable option.

And there’s one little problem with me believing this.

My husband, Tim, as I’ve mentioned, absolutely KNOWS he’s going to win a lottery.  He feels like he’s already won one.  He says he feels relaxed and exhilarated at the same time (we coined a new word for that—exhileraxation).  When he walks in the public forest here in our town, in his mind, he’s walking on our own property, the property we want to buy when he wins that lottery.  He has no money worries at all.  He doesn’t live in our “reality.”  He lives in his own.

This is exactly what you need to do to create a vibrational match with something you want—you have to find the place of feeling like you already have it.

Abraham-Hicks aren’t the only teachers who say this.  Neville wrote about it in the 1950’s and 60’s.  It was in The Secret. Lottery winner, Cynthia Stafford’s inspiration, author Joseph Murphy teaches this.

Friday evening, our good friends came over (I will call them Tilly and Pam).  We talked about the law of attraction and the role of energy vibration in creating your reality.  Pam asked me if I’ve read any of Gregg Braden’s books.  I have:  The Divine Matrix—Bridging Time, Space, Miracles, and Belief. She says she was listening to one of his books on tape, and she’d just listened to him tell the story of visiting the Hopi Indians and going out into the desert with one of the elders in the tribe.  They went out to pray for rain.  The elder went behind a rock and closed his eyes for a few minutes then came back and said it was done.  Braden, who apparently had been expecting some kind of ceremony or dance or something, was surprised and asked what the elder did.  The elder said he simply felt like it had already rained.  He imagined the feel of it on his skin, the smell of it, how the muddy earth felt oozing between his toes.  And sure enough, it rained.

The universe responds to our thought, and when our thought comes from a place of knowing (because we feel like we have what we desire), we match up with the energetic vibration of what we desire and it is ours.  That’s how it works.

But …

Back to where I’m hung up:  Tim has been doing exactly what you’re supposed to do.  Every Abraham-Hicks book I’ve read (I’ve read eight of them) says that once you find alignment with “who you really are” (the nonphysical part of you), as evidenced by your feeling good, you will experience shifts in your life in “just a few days.”  They say that once you have found this alignment that which you do not desire cannot make its way to you.  If you feel rich, you will experience the evidence of this alignment about money in the form of “some financial relief.”

So where is Tim’s financial relief?  Why do we still get creditor phone calls?  Why hasn’t money come his way?  How can he have gotten us in this situation if he feels so rich?

Tim has felt rich for a very long time, so where is his money?

This bugs me.

If you decide to follow a certain path, it’s nice to know that the path goes to where you want it to go.  I wouldn’t, for instance, get on Interstate 5, which runs north and south along the west coast, and expect it to take me to Washington D.C.  I also wouldn’t go on a diet that a friend followed perfectly without experiencing any weight loss at all.

So Tim’s alignment actually bothers me.  He should be experiencing financial shifts by now.  Shouldn’t he?

Tim says he’s not going to pay attention to the fact that his reality hasn’t matched up with his virtual reality yet because the minute he does that, he’s out of alignment.  He’s right.

But (again) …

One way to tell if you’re in alignment is to see what’s manifesting in your life.

Sigh.

A wise friend sent me an e-mail this morning and said I have to let Tim do his thing (win the lottery) while I do mine.  She told me her sister had watched an Oprah show about lottery winners, and one of the winners kept telling his wife he was going to win—she didn’t believe him, but then he did.  So there you go.  She’s write—I even wrote about this in a previous post.

It’s tough, though, to believe in a process that doesn’t seem to be working all that well for the person you’re living with.

So Ms. Feel Good is still in the morgue.  I’m working on ways to resurrect her.  I haven’t found the magic yet …….

Turning My Boat

A couple weeks ago, I had this idea to look for freelance writing and editing work online.  I did a preliminary search of the opportunities in this area and found a couple sites that looked worth signing up for.  I decided to get my Puppies Interrupted proposal done before I went further.

So yesterday, Tim and I had an incredible day celebrating the 9^th anniversary of the day he arrived in my town and moved in with me.  I had no trouble feeling good all day—it was a pure feel-great day!

I got up this morning feeling energized and upbeat.  Ducky and I had a great walk by the bay (more on that in a second).  I came home and went to work signing up for the sites.

I’ve been signing up for sites and looking for jobs for three hours now, and I don’t feel good at all.

I’m trying to find a way to feel good about this, but at the moment, having an oh-boy-I’m-a-published-author-who-has-worked-her-tail-off-to-create-financial-and-creative-success-and-now-I-have-to-scrounge-for-a-job-woo-hoo feeling is basically beyond me.

Today’s Abraham quote included this:

“We would never move forward in the face of negative emotion.”

I have a container-ship-load of negative emotion right now.  Moving forward with my job search, therefore, is counterproductive.

I started this freelance search with enthusiasm for the idea of bringing in some regular income working at home doing what I love to do and am good at (i.e., writing).  But the more I’ve searched, the worse I’ve felt.  Most of the work I’ve found isn’t work I feel excited about.  The process of applying for it is lengthy and time-consuming.

I want to write my own books.

I want to sell the ones I’ve written.

I want to be free to choose my projects.

Wah, wah, wah.

NI, NI, NI.

I feel discouraged, frustrated, angry, and sad.  Yuck

I feel ashamed and embarrassed that after all I’ve accomplished in my field, I’m going after work I don’t even want just to survive financially.

I KNOW there’s a better way to look at this.

Abraham has this upstream/downstream analogy about life:  when you let go of the oars and flow downstream (i.e. feel good, thereby aligning with your inner self), you easily float to all you desire; when you row hard upstream (work, struggle and feel bad in the process), you’re moving away from what you desire.

My boat is definitely headed upstream right now.

So, because the negative emotion isn’t helping me with the process of applying for these jobs, and because the negative emotion DEFINITELY goes against the spirit of my feel-good experiment, I stopped what I was doing so I could write this post.

I stopped to think about something that feels good.

Enter my tried and true heroine of all-that-feels-good:  Ducky.

This morning, the wind was blowing about 20 m.p.h. on the beach.  It was cold and foggy, and the tide was coming in.  Ducky had a blast chasing sandpipers, seagulls, and crows.  She also went after whatever was blowing across the sand.

Today’s offerings included bits of seaweed, pieces of crab shell, and chunks of Styrofoam (from floats).  All were equally fascinating to Miss Ducky.

Watching her chase that stuff is a riot.  She races after it and pounces on it.  Most of the time, the wind whisks away her prize before she can claim it.  She sees it continuing on its mad journey down the beach and she races after it again.  Run.  Pounce.  Wag tail.  Run.  Pounce.  Wag tail.  From time to time, she captures what she wants.  She usually eats it (no matter what it is), then wags her tail and starts the process again.

Ducky is my feel-good guru.  Not only does she make me smile, she shows me the process of going after what I want.

Following Ducky’s method is a good idea:  You go after it (align with it), feeling good along the way.  If it gets away, you go after it some more, still feeling good.  When you get it, you feel good.  When you’re trying to get it, you feel good.  It’s all about feeling good.

Ducky isn’t as interested in the capture as she is the chase.

That’s the secret of feeling good.  If we can feel good along the way to what we want, more of what we want will come.

I know this.  So feeling bad about these jobs isn’t an option.

I have to see it as a game or a challenge or not do it at all.

What I really want (the lottery, the book sales, the freedom to do what I want) is coming—BUT it will only come if I line up with it.  Feeling lousy while applying for writing jobs is not helping me.

So I choose to feel better.  And I do.

Thanks, Ducky.  You did it again.

The Truth About Emotion

Maybe I’m just a little dense, but I think The Secret and other books on the law of attraction are a bit misleading.  Until I really started studying Abraham-Hicks materials, I thought that feeling good was what created good things in your life.

Not true.

So why am I in the middle of this feeling good experiment?

Here’s a recent Abraham quote of the day:

“The Universe does not know if the vibration you are offering is because of what you are imagining, or because of what you are observing.  In either case, it is responding.  Where emotion comes in is that emotion is your guidance or your response to your vibration.  Your emotion does not create.  Emotion is your indicator of what you are already creating.  As you think, you vibrate.  And it is your vibrational offering that equals your point of attraction.  So it’s always a match.  What you are thinking and what is coming back to you is always a vibrational match.  The emotion (your Guidance System) is telling you what’s coming.”

See?  The feeling good isn’t the creational force.  The thought that matches with what you want is the creational force.  Feelings simply tell you whether your thought is a match to what you want or not.

It’s a great system, really.  No more monitoring thoughts—asking yourself what you’re thinking this minute.  All you have to do is pay attention to how you feel.  Feel good, you’re thinking an aligned thought.  Feel bad, you’re thinking a nonaligned thought, which means you’re in the process of creating something you don’t want.

Now that I’m consciously using my guidance system, I find feeling good getting easier and easier.  I don’t stress about what I should be doing or not doing.  I just pay attention to how I’m feeling as I do what I do or contemplate doing something I’m about to do.  When it feels bad, I stop.  OR I find a different way to think about what I’m doing.

Emotion isn’t something that is true or immutable.  It’s something we can change, and when we do, we are in control of creating our reality.

And I can feel myself getting better at it every day.

Luck?

It was big stuff when that book and DVD came out.  A phenomenon.  Featured on Oprah, Larry King Live and other TV shows.  The Secret sold millions of copies.

And have millions of lives changed as a result?

If so, I haven’t heard about it.

And I sure haven’t experienced it myself.

Does that mean the law of attraction doesn’t exist?  Is it a bunch of metaphysical crap?  Something akin to fairy dust or Santa’s reindeer?

Honestly, I don’t know.

But I’m going to find out.

That’s what this blog is about.

Once and for all, I’m going to live according to Abraham’s advice.  Not here and there.  Not just a little.  Not in dribs and drabs.  Wholeheartedly.  Whole-souledly.

I’m putting it all on the line.  Does it work or not?

I’ve got nothing else.  No job will fix my financial situation.

I’m waiting on that book sale, but can I count on it?  Nope.

I know what I don’t want.  I don’t want to sell my house, move someplace where I can get a job, and get some job I have to have just to pay my bills.  I’m a writer.  I set out to create a particular life for myself.  That life is one of financial abundance and creative freedom.

So here I am, determined to learn how to use the law of attraction to my advantage.

Notice I didn’t say activate it.  I don’t have to activate the law of attraction.  If it’s real, it’s a LAW, always there, like the law of gravity.  You don’t activate the law of gravity.  You live in awareness of it—i.e., you don’t walk off the top of 50 story buildings because you know the law of gravity will turn you into a splat on the sidewalk.

So how do you live in awareness of the law of attraction?

Here’s where I think The Secret and all its so-called teachers, messed up.  They didn’t dumb it down for people.  They talked about creating vision boards and visualizing and expecting, but they didn’t get to the meat of it:  It’s all about energy.

An aside:  many of The Secret teachers didn’t even seem to get that it was all energy.  When Larry King asked one of the teachers on the Larry King show, “What about the lottery?  Why does one person expect it and not win and one person who never thinks about the lottery win?,” the answer was, “well, there is some luck.”

Luck?

It’s all energy and the universe functions according to the law of attraction.  But oh yeah, there’s also some luck?

I once read (don’t ask me where) that believing in a universe that has luck and chance in it is like believing that you could put all the parts of a 747 jetliner in a big field, all willy nilly, taken apart, and expect a big wind to come through and blow them all into the right places to form a perfect completed plane.

Does it strike you that we live in such a universe?  A random one?  A chaotic one?

Look around.  Don’t you see order?

I sure do.  There is some organizing force behind what happens in the world.  Some people say that force is God, and they have specific ideas about what that God is and what he/she does.  Me?  I think it’s energy, energy that responds to other energy according to consistent laws.

The law of attraction is one of those laws.

If It Ain’t Working …..

You want to improve something–your body, your life, your parrot’s ability to talk….

So you read books.  Go to seminars.  Do workshops.

Then … you read or watch The Secret.

Aha.  The Law of Attraction.  You’ve found the answer.  Now you know what to do.

You’re all jazzed up.  Ready to go.  You jump in.

Visualize.  Focus.  Affirm.

You think you’re doing it right.

Time passes.

……….

……….

……….

Nothing changes.

Your life is no better.

Why?