Oops

I wonder what scientists do when they’re doing an experiment and they don’t take the daily actions they planned to take in the experiment.  What happens to the experiment when you screw up?

I guess in the case of my feel good experiment, the screwing up is part of it.  Is it really possible to feel consistently good when your circumstances aren’t so good?

It has to be, because if it isn’t, I’m in trouble.

Last night, before I went to sleep, I reread parts of the Abraham-Hicks book, Money and the Law of Attraction:  Learning to Attract Health, Wealth, and Happiness by Esther and Jerry Hicks.  It was a review of law of attraction concepts I know well, but it jazzed me up to continue to find reasons to feel good because it reminded me that when I am feeling good, it means I’m in alignment with my “inner self” or nonphysical part of me, and that alignment is what brings what I desire to me.  I went to sleep chanting, “Safe and secure.  Financially Free.”  I woke up feeling good and intending to find all kinds of reasons to keep feeling good.

As I’m getting up, I hear a siren.  Since my parents live down the street from me and have several health problems, I vaguely wonder if the siren is for them.  I recognize that as a not-feel-good thought and I move on.  But the siren reminds me of the firefighters who carried me into the house after I broke my ankle and leg.  Well, that doesn’t feel good.  NI!

Okay, moving on again.

I get up and go into the bathroom to weigh.  I’m excited about this.  I’ve been doing a three-week detox program, and the detox is over.  Because I have so much weight to lose and I cut back my consumption SO much, I expect to have dropped at least 15 pounds or more.  I step on the scale intending to see the number 285.  It’s 287.  I’ve actually gained a pound in the last two days (and I ate PERFECTLY those two days).  I’m disappointed and pissed.

Oops.  That doesn’t feel good.  Well, I tell myself, you’ve dropped 13 pounds.  That’s a good start.  You only need to drop two pounds a week to reach your year-end goal, and you can still do that.

I feel a little better.

I get ready for my morning walk, expecting Tim to come with me as usual.  His back is too stiff.  I’m pissed.  How does this SO ALIGNED man (he keeps telling me) get a stiff back.  Physical ailments are a sign of misalignment.

Oops.  His alignment is not my concern.

Okay, so I take Ducky to the forest.  We’re having a good walk.  She runs and leaps and pounces and prances, and I start to smile.  We run into my friend, Sandy, and her dog.  The dogs play.  We chat.  She asks me what we’ll do when we win a lottery.  I say we’ll move.  She says, “So would I.”  I tell her that I like our town but it didn’t treat Tim very well a few years ago.

Oops.  NI!

She tells me about the troubles she and her husband are having with the town now.  See how my thought and conversation attracted a match from her?  The conversation turns to selling houses.  We discuss the down market and how we wouldn’t get the money out of our houses that we need if we tried to sell now.  She asks a couple questions that lead me to say, “Our financial situation is dire.”

NI!  NI!  NI!

She tells me she’s sorry and starts making suggestions about aid I could get.  More helpful law of attraction action.

Okay, now I’m beating up on myself pretty well.  Why did I even bring up negative subjects?  I’ve had great, positive conversations with this woman.  Why did I get us started on complaining about our town and the housing market?

You keep telling the same story about your life and you’ll keep getting the same stuff in your life—this is Abraham 101—I know this stuff.

So my friend laments my financial troubles.  I tell her I know we’ll be okay.

And here’s where I finally find something good to think about.

I realize that when I tell her we’ll be okay, I really mean it.  Two weeks ago, I talked with another friend about our situation, and I bawled.  I was raw with fear and anger and frustration.

Today, when I talked to Sandy, I really was calm.  I could feel the difference in my vibration.  I feel optimism and belief, a significant improvement from where I was a couple weeks ago.  I could feel the difference in what Abraham calls the “point of attraction.”  I feel good about my future.  I have no idea why we’ll be okay, but I really feel like we will be okay.

Now I just have to get in the place of feeling great NOW.

So I managed to turn the conversation in a positive direction and I came home determined, once again, to find reasons to feel good.

The law of attraction had hooked into my negative stream, though.  I had a bunch of frustrations that if I talk about them now, I’ll have to yell NI!

So here I am again, working to find that feel good place, that everything-is-fine-now place.

I KNOW that I can change how I feel by changing my focus.  Now I just need to get a little tighter rein on my focus.  It likes to flop into negative places.  And once it does, the law of attraction brings me more negative thoughts to flop into.

So, oops.  Deciding to feel good and actually doing it are two different things.

So here I am recommitting to finding ways to feel good.

When It Feels Wrong, Stop, One Way Or The Other

So I woke up this morning with that intent to have a perfect day.  As soon as I finished my last entry and embarked on the day, I forgot my intention.

I started a new eating program on the 4^th (based on the book, Ultrametabolism by Dr. Mark Hyman), and it’s been going well; but I weighed this morning, and I hadn’t lost as much weight as I thought I would this week.  My thoughts starting romping down that pissy path where I get annoyed because things aren’t going my way.  I’ve dropped (permanently banished, I sincerely hope) 11 ½ pounds in the last 13 days, but when you have 150 to get rid of, you want to see a big exodus of fat as fast as possible.  So I was, as is my tendency, impatient and annoyed that it was going slower than I wanted.

But wait!

It’s a perfect day.  I remembered my intention.

I redirected my thoughts, and the half pound that had exited my pound-over-populated body became something to be happy about.  It’s perfect, I told myself.

And I set out for my morning walk.

Ducky and I walk either on the beach or on the trails in 50 or so acres of public forest not far from my house.  Today, because it was raining steadily, we chose the forest.

We usually have the place to ourselves.  I live in a retirement/tourist town.  The tourists stay on the beach.  The retirees apparently mostly stay indoors someplace, so not many of us use those forest trails.

Ducky loves the forest, and generally spends her time thrashing through the underbrush, leaping over downed trees and burrowing under logs.  Today, she stuck to the trail, right at my heels.  Her ears were back.  Her tail was tucked.  Something wasn’t right in the woods.

Could it be the reports that sounded like gunshots coming from west of one of the main trails?

The forest is in the city limits, and obviously, shooting isn’t allowed, but it sure sounded like gunshots.

I did my best to ignore the sounds—surely they weren’t what I thought they were.  It was a perfect day, so I was going to enjoy my rainy walk in the woods.

We made our first loop.  Ducky remained hesitant.

We started the second loop we usually do.  I heard another shot (or whatever the sound was).  I felt myself starting to get annoyed and nervous.  What if they were shots?  What kind of idiot would ….

Oops.  That’s not a thought that makes me feel good.

I kept walking, telling myself to put my attention on the raindrops glistening on dripping moss.

Then, I stopped.

Feeling good doesn’t mean ignoring what your instinct is telling you.  I wasn’t enjoying this walk.

When you’re not feeling good, you have two choices:  change what you’re doing or change the way you’re thinking about what you’re doing.

Well, I’d tried the first route, and it didn’t feel right.  So I decided it was time to take the second choice.  I stopped in the middle of the path, looked at Ducky, listened, heard another shot, and turned around.

We headed back to the car.  We’d only walked 35 minutes and we usually go well over an hour, but I figured I could take her to the beach.

On the way back to the car, though, we ran into one of her friends, Dixie, a German short-haired pointer, and her person, Mel.  Ducky and Dixie love each other and love to play together, so Mel and I hung out for about 40 minutes talking while Ducky ran her little tail (or rather, stump) off.

Occasionally, we heard those shot sounds in the distance, but we were on the far side of the forest, and though Ducky didn’t like the sounds, Dixie distracted her.

I LOVE watching Ducky play, so even though I do enjoy walks in the forest, seeing her play was even better.

By paying attention to how I felt, I was able to create an experience that really was perfect.

This feel good, perfect day stuff is pretty fun.

Abraham says that if you pay attention to the guidance you get from the nonphysical part of you (guidance that comes in the form of feelings), you will always make the right choices and have a great time.  I’ve spent way too much of my life ignoring that guidance.  Today, I followed it and got a great experience as a result.

Perfect.