The Secret Is Wags

I have three Twitter accounts.  Or rather, I have two—one for my writer self and one for my law of attraction self, and Ducky has one.  Ducky’s account is the one that has grown the fastest.  In just a few weeks, she’s up to 240 or so followers. Of my other two accounts, both of which are fledglings, the law of attraction account is moving at three times the speed.  I have seventy-some followers, and all but a handful are trying to sell me something.

Like I said the other day in One Small Squeak For Humankind, it seems like most of the world’s population is selling something related to the law of attraction. All these Twitter followers who want me to pay for their coaching or e-books or seminars, and all the authors of the multiple law of attraction books and blogs that I’ve read have something in common.  They’re people who have, or at least claim to have, used the law of attraction to make grand changes in their lives. These people say they’ve taken Abraham-Hicks’ teachings or the information in The Secret and they’ve run with it.  It’s changed their lives.  They’re success stories, and they’re clamoring to help everyone else be success stories too.

And here I am.

One small voice in the middle of a raging storm.

A couple years ago, I thought I was one of those success stories.  I had created a bunch of wonderful things in my life—finding my loving husband, Tim; getting three books published; losing a bunch of weight; inheriting money.  I got this law of attraction stuff, so I wrote about it and sold a short e-book about it for a time.

Then the winds rose and the torrents descended.  Life slammed me with injuries—Tim’s and mine, career disappointment, weight problems, and a huge financial crisis.

On the sliding scale of life messiness, with 10 being the most together and 1 being total disaster, I’m hovering around a 3.  It’s gusty around here.  The hail stings and threatens to blind my visions of a happy future.  The gale’s shriek nearly deafens me.

Who am I to write a blog about law of attraction?

The Woman Wears Gor-Tex®

The last couple days, literal wind and rain have blasted through my town in a succession of squalls that darken the sky and rattle the windows.  Each day, Ducky and I have headed to the bay side of town and walked on the beach in the storms.

I’m one of the few crazies in the world who actually likes walking on stormy days.  My last dog, Muggins, and I (a long time ago, I traded power suits for Gor-Tex® raingear) walked in 40 plus m.p.h winds and heavy downpours regularly.  When I had my accident and Tim had to take over walking Muggins for several months, he couldn’t stand the stormy weather.  He’s a wussy walker.  He started taking her to the nearby woods trails, where the forest sheltered them from the worst of the elements.  (Note—Tim says he’s not wussy; he’s smart.)

I found all of my greatest treasures on Muggins’ and my stormy walks.  Every one of the glass floats I have appeared on the beach during or right after a storm.  And the rainbows?  I’ve seen some mind-blowing rainbows, the kind that are so vibrant and vivid—sleek streaks of color against a black sky—that they seem to stop time.

Photo by Bùi Linh Ngân

I’ve seen a dozen such rainbows on the beach in the last couple days.  Those rainbows reminded me of the extraordinary power of where I am in my life right now.

Desire’s Pull

Abraham-Hicks say that when you have strong, strong desire, the pull of that desire, the speed of the stream of energy that is moving toward what you want, is so fast that when you resist it, you’re going to get beat up.  And they say that when you start attempting to activate your vibration purposefully to attract something into your life, you will, as a matter of course, activate the opposite as well.  Things can become a big mess for awhile.

Someone with puny desires and no intention to align can putt along nicely in a mediocre place and look, from the outside, like everything is just fine.  This person can have enough money and a decent job and an okay relationship.  But joy?  Most people like this are missing joy.

People like me who have HUGE wants and even bigger intention to have those wants tend to trash our lives before we get it together and line up with all we desire.  But joy?  We have joy.  We have stunning pockets of it, like the swaths of blue that appear like a divine magic trick from the wall of blackened sky when squalls pass by and expose the sun.

This is the wild place, the disjointed, cacophonous place from which amazing things can happen.  This is the place where I’m living now.

Gratitude For The Wild Things

In 1995, my first husband and I separated for two months, and I rented a cottage by the ocean in Cannon Beach, Oregon.  I spent the time writing and taking long stormy walks with Muggins.  I also wandered the art galleries.  One day, I found a print by Bev Doolittle called “Prayer For The Wild Things.” I almost bought it but for some reason didn’t (money wasn’t an issue then, so I could have).  I wish I had.  The print captures for me the essence of life at its most powerful: a gnarled tree, ragged rocks, a dark sky, and hidden deftly within it all, created by the subtle strokes that are Bev Doolittle’s genius, dozens of animal spirits.

The print means even more to me now than it did when I first saw it.  The animal spirits, I think, are our desires—right there in front of us but hidden from our physical ability to see them.  The rugged landscape is the “what is” of a reality created by resistance vibrations.

Of course we don’t have to create wild messes like I have.  We were meant to come forth into joy and use contrast to lead us to more and more joy.  But most of us have let society and our “what is” circumstance get us out of alignment.  We’re in the wild place.

What we need to remember is the wild place is a powerful place.  It’s the place where contrast is SO huge that our vision of our desires becomes crystal clear.  When we’re in this place, the smallest shift in vibrational focus can have the most incredible impact.  To use Abraham-Hicks’ analogy, the energy stream is moving fast, and when we align and turn our boat to go with the stream, we shoot toward what we desire, with no effort on our part at all, with astounding speed.

So that’s who I am.  I am a powerful woman who by virtue of a little misuse of that power created a storm where the wild things live.  I write from what is and what will be.  I write from gratitude for the storm that has gathered around me because I rejoice in the beauty of the rainbows forming on my horizon.

Tomorrow, I’ll tell you the story of a man who turned his personal storm into not just an amazing rainbow but the pot of gold at the end of it as well.

Say a prayer of thanks for the wild things.  They come bearing gifts.

I love comments and welcome yours.  To leave a comment, click on the “comments” link (it will say “No comments or “1 comment” or more) at the end of the tags in “Posted in” at the end of this post.

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Yesterday, I set my intention:  Wanted: One Fat Focus.

Since then, I’ve been thinking more about how to get it.  How do I consistently create that mass of little appreciations that becomes so big and heavy it keeps my teeter-totter from moving as much?

Watching Ducky perform one of her tricks, I got the answer.

Last Friday evening, we had dinner with friends, Neil and Nancy.  Ducky was invited too, and she did a couple of her tricks for them.  Nancy particularly liked Ducky’s “touch it” trick.  She asked, “How did you teach her to do that?”

The trick isn’t complicated.  Here it is:

Fast Tube by Casper

Though it’s not a complicated trick, it is a bit of a challenge to teach to an enthusiastic puppy obsessed with food.  Teaching Ducky this and other tricks requires a lot of repetition, and that, I concluded last night, is the secret to building up the heavy mass of appreciation.

When I taught Ducky to “touch it,” I started by teaching her the foundations that lead to it.  I taught her “sit,” then “down,” then “stay.”  With each of these commands, I used a treat to move her into the position I wanted her to be in, and once she got there, I gave her praise and the treat.

With stay, I held her in place at first then allowed her to sit or lie on her own.  When I said, “stay” and she moved, I put her back in place and repeated the command.  If she didn’t move, I said, “good stay,” and gave her a treat.

Once I had these in place, I started working on “touch it.”  I put the treat in front of her and said stay.  I said “touch it” as I picked up her paw and put it on the treat.  Then I said, “Good touch it.”

We did this multiple times a day for several days, and then one day, I said, “touch it,” and she did. Once dogs learns a trick, the trick becomes second nature to them.  These days, when we get out a treat, Ducky sometimes dances (on her hind legs—spinning in a circle), waves with her paw, and rolls over before you say a word.

So how do we translate this into training minds?

Deliberate Thought Training 101

Based on my ongoing success with Ducky, I’ve come up with a training program for my puppy-like brain.

It’s a four step process for teaching the brain to “like it.”

What I’m aiming for with this process is having a brain that automatically looks for something to like about every little thing I see or experience.  I want my thoughts to “dance” without needing a command and “roll over” away from negative judgments and focus.

I want all this to be second-nature, done without effort the way Ducky does her tricks these days.  Before I can get there, though, I need some training.

1.  I figured I needed to start with a foundation.  Getting to “like it” from a place of mindlessly observing what is would be like asking an untrained dog who doesn’t know how to sit or stay to “touch it.”

So the way I’m doing this is to teach myself to “sit and stay on appreciation.”  I constantly put myself in the position of appreciation by saying over and over in my head, “I appreciate …. ” Then I fill in with something after that.

This isn’t as obtrusive as it sounds. I’ve found in the few hours I’ve been practicing this that I can repeat this while I work, eat, and have conversations.

2. Now that I’ve gotten a foundation, I’m moving on to putting myself in a position to “like it.”  I pretend to have the mindset of an eager pup, expecting everything to be a toy, sure that the whole world is there to amuse me.  With this perspective, how can I dislike anything?

If I move out of this position, I put myself back in it with an anchor.  An anchor is a neurolinguistic programming (NLP) technique.  It’s a physical gesture linked to a specific thought or feeling response.  Many anchors are unconscious, and in fact, they become unwanted habits—like chewing on nails when anxious or needing a cigarette to concentrate.  You can create anchors on purpose, though.  The way to do it is to elicit the desired state, which can be done with visualization, then make the gesture while in that state.

I created my anchor by using my favorite state of appreciation—watching Ducky do something cute.  While I watched her, I put my thumb up and waggled it back and forth (a cross between thumbs up and wags).

My anchor is working pretty well so far.  When I shift from the eager place of “the world is a cool place,” I waggle my thumb, and I am right back in position again.

3. Now that I have my foundation and my anchor (the equivalent of me putting Ducky’s paw on the treat), I keep repeating my “command:” “I like.” Then I smile.  That’s my reward.

4. And as with training a puppy, I am doing all of this over and over and over and over again.

I’ve just begun this training process so I’ll have to let you know its long-term impact.  For now, though, in less than a day, I’ve seen a marked reduction in the up-down of my mental teeter-totter. Apparently, I’m trainable, because this seems to be working.

You don’t need to follow my method for getting that teeter-totter to stop popping up and down.  Greg commented, after yesterday’s post, that he’s using a virtual hug and self love to weigh down the other end of the teeter-totter.  Karen uses her thought clicker (one is on its way to me too, and I’m sure it will help).  Whatever works!

The great thing is that as soon as you make the effort to get that teeter-totter stable, the law of attraction will bring you thoughts that match your new thought vibration.  It gets easier and easier.

Have you found a way to still your thought teeter-totter?  Please share it so others can give it a try too.

I love comments and welcome yours.  To leave a comment, click on the “comments” link (it will say “No comments or “1 comment” or more) at the end of the tags in “Posted in” at the end of this post.

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The law of attraction has created some noticeable things in the last few days.  Here are a few:

“Keep Them Doggies Movin’ Rawhide!”

Costco used to carry huge bags of 10” rawhides for an incredibly low price.  Ducky, being a nine-month old puppy, LOVES to chew, so we go through rawhides.  When we returned to Costco to get more, we were disappointed to discover they didn’t have rawhides anymore.  We searched all over (online and in stores) for rawhides at a good price.  We ended up settling for a price that was four times the Costco price—and that was a sale price.

I told a friend about how Ducky’s rawhide consumption is going to do us in if we can’t find a better pirce, and she said she used to get them at a discount online.  She told me she’d send a link.  The day she planned to send the link, she got an e-mail from the company with a 20 percent off coupon.  Perfect timing!

Law of Attraction Blogs

Last week, I decided to make a list of top law of attraction blogs. I want to follow what other LOA bloggers are doing.  I started to look for LOA blogs on Technorati but it was a tedious task I wasn’t enjoying; so I stopped.  The next day, a blog I already followed—The Good Vibes Blog, posted a list of top LOA blogs. And just like that—the universe did the work for me!

Lunch Out For A Friend

My friend, Nancy, started a new job with an organization she worked for several years ago.  She says the other day she thought about how she and her old work buddies used to go to lunch at a place called The Windjammer. She remembered it as being fun, and she wanted to go again but no one in her new job had mentioned it.  THAT day, one of her new coworkers came in and invited her to go with a group to lunch at The Windjammer.

Ashland

My new, wise Abraham friend, Karen Money Williams, said something in a message to me last week about her time living in Ashland, Oregon.  The NEXT DAY, I received the latest edition of the AAA Western Journey Magazine.  One of the feature articles was about … yes, Ashland, Oregon.

Baseball Analogies

After one of my posts last week, Greg wrote in a comment, “Well, Ande steps up to the plate, the pitch is a fastball, crack, out of the stadium.” Great compliment, but here’s the fun part.  On the SAME DAY, on my writing blog, Dogging The Words, I received a comment about a post on that blog.  The comment started, “You knocked this one out of the ballpark.” Talk about synchronicity!  I guess I had an on invisible baseball cap that day.

Guest Posting

For the last couple weeks, I’ve had an intent to do guest posts for popular writing and law of attraction blogs. I haven’t approached any blog authors yet, but I want to do so soon.  Two days ago, one of the writing blogs I just started following did a post on how to approach blog authors about guest posting.  I didn’t go looking for the information; it came to me.

Results like these remind me to stay deliberate about what I focus on.  What kind of things are showing up in your life?

I love comments and welcome yours.  To leave a comment, click on the “comments” link (it will say “No comments or “1 comment” or more) at the end of the tags in “Posted in” at the end of this post.

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A few days ago, this Abraham-Hicks quote landed in my e-mail inbox:

“When you’re vibrating purely, you get only what’s a match to that. It’s your ambivalence: ‘I like that but I don’t like that… I like that but I don’t like that..’ that keeps what you like and what you don’t like coming at you all the time. You don’t have to ‘turn the other cheek’ when you are in vibrational harmony only with what you want. Then, only what you want comes.”

This isn’t new information, obviously.  I know noticing what I like brings me more of it and noticing what I don’t like brings me more of that.  For some reason, though, this statement immediately projected an image of a teeter-totter into my head, and as I moved through my days afterward, I became acutely aware of how my thoughts constantly shifted from likes to don’t likes and how the teeter-totter in my head popped up and down in sync with my shifting thoughts.The graphic visual spotlighted how much my thoughts go up and down, up and down, up and down.  Just in the short five-minute drive from our house to the forest where I walk Ducky, for instance, I watched my thoughts do something like this:

• The cherry blossoms in that yard are lovely. UP
• They need to pull some weeds. DOWN
• I’m glad they repaved this road. UP
• Why did they leave those pieces of asphalt piled up at the corners? DOWN
• That’s where the nice people who own the Mexican restaurant live.  UP
• They’ve left their garage door open—what a mess they have in there. DOWN
• It’s a nice mild day; no rain. UP
• The mosquitoes are going to be ferocious on the back trail. DOWN

It’s amazing I’m not in a state of perpetual motion sickness.

I’ve been paying attention to my emotional guidance system to help me monitor my thoughts, and I’ve been doing SO much better than I was even just a couple months ago.  No more panic and anxiety.  I’ve been feeling good.

But when I started paying attention, I saw how much I focus on things I don’t like.  I seem to attach a dislike to every like I come up with.

I’ve even done it with Ducky, my feel good touchstone:  Ducky makes me laugh, and she purely delights me, but I sure wish she wouldn’t bring in sticks and tear them into pieces to leave on my rug.

Remember being on a teeter-totter when you were a kid?  You needed someone of somewhat equivalent weight on the other side so you could consistently pop up and down.

When I was in grade school, one of my classmates was an extremely fat girl.  Most of the kids wouldn’t play with her, so I did.  One day, she and I settled onto the teeter-totter, not thinking about how the difference in our weights was going to impact our fun.  I was a skinny kid.  She was huge.  I straddled my end.  She got on and sat down.  I shot up in the air so fast I nearly fell off.

No matter how hard she tried to push off the ground to pop up in the air herself, she couldn’t do it.  I was stuck up in the air until one of my friends came over and hung on to my end to lower it down.

Teeter-Totter Thought

The high end of the teeter-totter is our focus on likes.  The things that please us allow us to push off and fly into the air.  The things that don’t please us are the push-offs on the other end of the teeter-totter that send us back to earth.  Most of us have as many dislikes as we have likes, so the balance of our thought is half up and half down.

The law of attraction matches our experience with the balance of our thoughts.  If we’re half up and half down, no wonder we get so many things we don’t like in our lives.  We go up, and great things happen.  We go down, and lousy things happen.  Our experiences teeter-totter in perfect rhythm with our thought vibration.

What we need, I’ve decided, is a nice fat focus on likes that is so big and so heavy that it catapults us into the air and leaves us there.  That “up” position on the teeter-totter is Abraham-Hicks’ vortex.  It’s vibrational alignment with all we desire.

I know you’ve had times in your life when something you like SO commands your attention that you don’t even notice negative things.  Falling in love comes to mind.  Christmas morning, a major win in sports, landing a big job, winning money—these are all such big, heavy likes that they fire us into the air and leave us there for a time.

But how can we focus on something that feels that good when nothing that good is happening in our “what is” reality?

We can either get so adept at visualizing from a place of “I already have what I want” that we feel like we’re focusing on something good that already exists OR we can focus on so many little likes that they glom onto each other and form a big heavy blob of positive energy that acts the same way a single, heavy focus does.

I’m still working on visualizing from the place of “I already have what I want.”  I’m playing with a new visualizing technique that I’ll report on when I have a little  more practice with it.  In the meantime, though, I’m finding that just being aware of the thought teeter totter is making it possible for me to consciously look at more likes than dislikes.

Just over the last day or so, I’ve begun to see all this little likes come together to create a fat focus that is starting to weigh down the other end of my teeter-totter so I’m up in the air more often.  It’s pretty fun to feel that high (excuse the pun).

Are you aware of how much your thoughts are teetering up and down?  Pay attention.  You may need to create your own “fat focus” to raise you up.

I love comments and welcome yours.  To leave a comment, click on the “comments” link (it will say “No comments or “1 comment” or more) at the end of the tags in “Posted in” at the end of this post.

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In the last post, I referenced an Abraham-Hicks video about the law of attraction and the lottery.  If you haven’t read that post, do.  It was a gargantuan AHA for me, and it might be for you too.

In case you’re curious about the video, here it is.  Part two of the same conversation is below it:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YuA0S9HvU4]

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcfjG5caFNQ]

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Given Tim’s knowing that he’s a lottery winner, I tend to have an “attract a lottery win” radar.  The other day, I stumbled across an Abraham-Hicks video about aligning with a lottery win.

In the video, a woman tells Abraham that she wants to win a lottery.  Abraham asks the woman why.  She says she wants to be rich (obviously), but she also wants “proof” that the law of attraction is working in her life, proof that she can attract what she wants on purpose.

Abraham pointed out that whenever you are seeking proof of something, you are inherently vibrating in a place of doubt on the subject.  When I heard this, I thought, to quote Scooby Do, “Rut ro.”

I started The Secret Is Wags? as an experiment.  I wanted to see if finding reasons to feel good would change my current circumstances, which sucked big time at the beginning of the year and are still not anything to bark about.

I was looking for proof of what Abraham-Hicks and others teach about the law of attraction.  I was looking for evidence that the law of attraction truly exists.  I even had “A Law of Attraction Experiment” as a subhead of the blog title, and I had a “Law of Attraction Evidence” page.

Again, “Rut ro.”

Knowing Doesn’t Need Proof

The minute I heard what Abraham said about proof, I KNEW the truth of it.  I FELT it at a vibrational level.  If you’re looking for proof, you are a vibrational match to the lack of that for which you’re looking for proof.  It must be so.  Because if you have something or you know it to be true, you don’t seek proof of it.

I immediately thought about things I know about my life.  I know, for instance, that my husband, Tim, loves me.

I never go looking for proof of his love.  Why would I?  I know his love.  I know it through his actions, yes.  But I know it at a deeper, more profound level.  His love is a part of me.  It’s as real to me as my own breath.

If I did go looking for proof, would I find it?

Sometimes, yes, I would.  The proof is in his “Good Morning, Beautiful,” in his “I love you”s, in his kisses, in his willingness to do things for me, in his unwavering belief in me … I could go on, but you see what I mean.

But does he do these things all the time?  Of course not.  He’s a busy guy.  Even though we both work at home, hours and hours and go by without any “evidence” that he loves me.  If you happened to peek into our home for a chunk of the afternoon, you might conclude he didn’t give two hoots about me.  He’s in his office; I’m in my work space.  He comes out to use the bathroom and may or may not wave at me.  We eat lunch at different times.  We don’t interact much at all during the day.  Where’s the proof of his love?

If I was frantically looking for it, I wouldn’t see much of it.  If I didn’t see it, I’d start thinking he didn’t love me.  If I started thinking he didn’t love me, my perception would then skew his subsequent actions, and I’d begin finding proof that he doesn’t love  me.  I’d see every hour that he says nothing to me as glaring evidence of his complete lack of regard for me.

Proof of the law of attraction, evidence of it, can be challenging to spot.  It’s tricky because manifestation isn’t instantaneous.  What’s showing up in your life today is a result of how you were vibrating in the past.

I used to be baffled by how I could get up feeling absolutely fantastic and have something truly nasty happen that day.  Where’s that like-attracts-like-vibrations thing, I’d demand. How could I possibly have attracted this crud when I was feeling so wonderful?

Do you see?  It’s the same thing as concluding that Tim doesn’t love me because he ignores me in the afternoons.

Proof of the law of attraction is obscured by our limited perceptions. We’re like gnats on a TV screen.  We see only a bunch of dots because we can’t see the whole screen.

The universe or God orchestrates, by law of attraction, all the pieces that fall into place to bring things into our lives.  Think about an orchestra for a second.  If you were to listen to each separate instrument, each separate part, you wouldn’t be all that impressed with the sound.  I used to sing in a choral group Tim directed.  I’m a tenor, so I sang a harmony part.  When I sang my part by itself, it often sounded pretty odd, but when the tenor part combined with the other four parts in the group, it was great.

This is the problem with looking for proof of law of attraction working in our lives.  We can never hear the whole orchestra or choir at once.  We get bits and pieces, and those often don’t look like much.

No Longer Seeking Proof

So the experiment is over.  No more looking for evidence or proof.

You’ll notice that the “?” is missing from the blog header.  And you’ll notice a new subhead, Law of Attraction Awareness.  I’ve also changed the header of the page links on the sidebar, and I have changed the About Wags page.  I’ve changed Law of Attraction Evidence to Law of Attraction Results as well.  I’m not going back to change the titles of old posts that mention law of attraction evidence, but I no longer think of the experiences I talk about in those posts as evidence.  I think of them as results.

And why do I still take note of results?

Well, when you’re learning a new skill, like staying in awareness of the law of attraction, it can be encouraging to see the results of your actions.  It’s kind of like a new exercise program.  When you start walking more or lifting weights, you don’t look for proof that the exercise is building up your endurance or muscles.  You KNOW it will.  But you do look for the results because the results make it easier to keep up the walking or weight lifting.

As I say on the new About Wags page, the law of attraction isn’t some mechanism that we have to learn how to use properly.  We don’t have to believe in it.  We don’t activate it or power it up.  It’s a law, like gravity.

You don’t take courses in how to use gravity.  People aren’t raking in money coaching others in how to use gravity to stay alive.

Gravity is simply a law for which you have an awareness.  You developed that awareness thanks to the caring people who didn’t let you toddle off the edge of cliffs when you were little and thanks to your many experiences with finding your butt on the floor when you lost your balance.

Attraction—the coming together of like vibrations—just IS.  It is, whether you believe in it or not. But, just as a lack of awareness of gravity can get you in trouble, a lack of awareness of the law of attraction can get you in some nice messes in your life.

Most of us have learned to interact with our world from a perspective of action, struggle, and compliant.  We’ve learned to fight and push against.  Learning to live in a different way, a way that keeps an awareness of the law of attraction at the forefront of our thoughts, is something that takes some effort.

We simply aren’t used to thinking our way to what we want.  We need help to keep working at finding feel good thoughts when doing so isn’t yet intuitive.  That’s why I write this blog.  I need constant reminders to stay aware of the law of attraction.  I need encouragement, in the form of noticing results, to help me keep reaching for better feeling thoughts.  I need new ideas for finding good-feeling thoughts. Since I’m a writer, the way I take a journey like this one is with words.  I put the words on a blog because I intend for my journey to be of help to your journey toward second-nature-law-of-attraction awareness.

I’m not a law of attraction coach or “expert.”  I’m just a woman standing in a place of great contrast, a woman determined to think her way to a better place.  I’m simply a woman on a journey, and I’m happy to have you come along with me.

Just keep in mind that this journey isn’t one that seeks proof.  It’s not a journey to gather evidence.  It’s a journey of knowing.  It’s a journey of awareness.  It’s a journey of universal law and how to remain always cognizant of that law so we deliberately choose thoughts that are in vibrational alignment with the reality we desire.

I love comments and welcome yours.  To leave a comment, click on the “comments” link (it will say “No comments or “1 comment” or more) at the end of the tags in “Posted in” at the end of this post.

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I set up this blog with about as much technical know how as I have knowledge of the Russian language (hint: “nyet” is about the only Russian word I know).  Once I had the web address, I scrolled through all the WordPress themes and chose this one because it’s crisp, clean, and simple, and it lets me put a picture of happy Ducky in the header.  The blog is, after all, about wags.

As soon as I set up the blog, I had a problem.  On some browsers and computers, the header bled into the photo frame.

Trial and error finagling finally resulted in a change in the overall size of the blog, which reduced the header size enough to remove the problem.  Then I had a new issue.  The blog posts’ font size was a little smaller than I wanted.

By then, though, I had totally surpassed what I was able to do with the theme style sheet.  I called it good and let it go.

Still, my inner voice nudged at me and said the font might be a bit too small for comfortable readability.  I ignored the voice.  I had too many other things I needed to do.

A few days ago, I got an e-mail from a reader.  She kindly told me she enjoyed the blog, and then she asked me if anyone had told me the blog posts are difficult to read.  She suggested I change the font.

Well, there it was.  The problem I’d attempted to ignore was back, and this time, it was more important because now a reader had spoken up about it.

I poked at the problem for a couple days with no positive results.  I communicated to the reader yesterday, via Facebook, that I was working on it.  I said maybe I can align my way to a solution.

And that’s what I did.

Friday, I got home from my beach walk with Ducky.  Tim bounced out of the office and said, “Give me scritches.”  That’s our way of saying “praise” because we give Ducky “scritches” (pats and rubs) when we’re praising her.  In Tim’s case, “scritches” are actually kisses.

So I give Tim kisses, and he tells me that he figured out how to fix the font size on the blog.  Yay!

And by now, you’re wondering why I’m telling you this story.  What does it have to do with you?

I’m telling you because it’s a perfect example of the power of 3-Up.

Listen Up

My inner wisdom told me the font was too small.  I ignored what I heard.  If I’d listened, I could have aligned my way to the right font size from the beginning.

Speak Up

So I didn’t listen, but my reader spoke up.  She experienced contrast (the font size was smaller than she wanted).  She immediately realized what she wanted (larger font size), and then she took inspired action (she contacted me).

Notice that she didn’t complain to me.  Instead, she told me what she wanted.

Lighten Up

My reader’s gentle approach made it easy for me to hear her, and it motivated me to get her what she wanted.  If she’d taken a heavy-handed approach, I’m sure I still would have tried to accommodate her, but not from a place of positive vibration.

Because I was in a place of positive vibration about the font issue (my thought was, “I’m glad this person enjoys the blog enough to take the time to tell me she’d prefer a larger font size”), I was able to quickly align myself with a solution.  And I did this without struggle.

In fact, all I did was poke at the style sheet a bit, and when my efforts didn’t reveal a solution, I asked Tim for help (I spoke up). He listened up, and I lightened up by taking Ducky for a walk.

And voila … the font size is bigger.

Your ability to 3-up gives you great creative power.  It’s a pretty simple process.

• Listen up—pay attention to your inner guidance system.
• Speak up—allow contrast to lead you to stating (figuratively—you don’t actually have to SAY it) what you want
• Lighten up—get easy about it; find good thoughts and feelings, which will align you vibrationally with what you desire so the law of attraction can bring you what you want or nudge you toward inspired action that will bring you what you want.

I’m working on being more consistent about using my 3-up power.  How about you?

If you have a request for me, please speak up.

I love comments and welcome yours.  To leave a comment, click on the “comments” link (it will say “No comments or “1 comment” or more) at the end of the tags in “Posted in” at the end of this post.

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As I shared in the Keep Swimming post, I’m finished with the creation portion of my novel writing instruction package, and now it’s time to promote.

I have one word that sums up how I feel about that.

Yuck.

I know I’m not the only creative person out there who loves the creating and hates the selling.  And I KNOW I’m not the only one selling.

The last couple days, I’ve been poking around Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and dozens of blogs in the writing and law of attraction arenas, and I have three words to say about that.

I need earplugs!!

So much NOISE out there.  I’ve decided that of the approximately seven billion people in the world, all but 13 of them are selling something.  And of all those people selling, I think all but 27 of them are selling law of attraction or writing information.

Okay, I’m exaggerating a little.

Seriously, though, do you ever get the feeling that you are the tiniest speck of all the specks in the universe and your voice is even tinier and you’re trying to shout loud enough for a few hundred or maybe a few thousand people to hear you and all you can get out is a squeak?

Or is it just me?

I know that when I feel this tiny … I’m talking quantum-particle-sized, I’m not aligned with the nonphysical part of me.  I know this because when I feel this small, I do not have positive emotions.  In fact, I have very negative emotions.

Those negative emotions are my indicator that I’m out of alignment.

Okay, I get that.

But how do I get back in alignment when I feel, as I said to a friend, “like a guppy in a sea of piranhas?” We didn’t answer that question in our conversation, but we did have a laugh about my silly analogy.  Piranhas are freshwater fish.  They don’t swim in the ocean.  Whatever—you get what I mean.

Well, here’s what’s fun about all the work I’ve been doing in the last four months to find better feeling thoughts.  I must be making some progress, because in response to my question about how to feel good being this quantum guppy in a noisy sea of piranhas (don’t you love analogy potpourris?), my brain ever-so-helpfully called up a memory.

The memory is from 2006, about a week after Tim got his head injury.  Not a good time for us.  I generally don’t go back and poke at it.

But the memory my brain unboxed for me was this:

My third book was on the verge of publication, and I, along with several dozen other Pacific Northwest authors, had committed to attending a library fundraiser in Bellevue.  It was a dinner/book signing event with a keynote speaker.  The speaker was Kevin Carroll.

Kevin Carroll is a consultant, author, and speaker who uses the symbolism of a red rubber ball (which he played with as a kid for hours at a Philadelphia neighborhood playground) to teach the power of sport, play, and creativity.  No question about it.  Carroll is a great speaker.  But here’s why my brain brought this memory up for me:  Carroll’s message is nothing new.

I remember sitting in awe of Carroll during his talk.  I was mesmerized by his energy, yes, but I was even more mesmerized by the fact that everything he said was something I’d said myself at one time or other in the newspaper column I used to write—The Up Beat.  Carroll has an original symbol for his information, but the message itself is familiar.

I had this big aha moment that night.  I realized that it isn’t that we have to have anything earth-shattering to say; we just have to have a great passion for what we’re saying and a memorable hook to hang it on.  In other words, in order to be heard in all the noise in the world, you don’t have to shout.  You just have to squeak with intense enthusiasm.

Unfortunately, over the last four years, my aha moment got buried under the reality of Tim’s memory loss and later, my accident.  But the law of attraction, working as swimmingly as usual, brought the aha back to me when I was reaching for a thought that helped me feel confident about taking my place in the noisy world.

Just between you and me—I really don’t want to take my place in the world as a writing expert.  Yes, I have a lot of expertise in that area.  I’ve taught writing in law schools and in creative writing workshops.  I’ve written books, articles, essays, columns, poetry, screenplays and I can’t actually remember what all else.  I’ve coached writers.  I’ve edited.  I know what I’m talking about.  BUT my real passion is actually in another place:

Doggone It, I LOVE Dogs!

It probably didn’t escape your notice that I love dogs.  And here’s the truth about what I really want.  I want to find my place in the big noisy world as someone who motivates others using the wisdom I’ve gained from my dogs and other dogs.  Sound silly?  Simplistic?  It’s definitely been done.  So can I find a way to do it in my own way?  Can I peep loud enough to be heard?

My last Springer, Muggins, was a talker.  She had a truly awesome range of sounds, a wider range than I’ve ever heard in a dog.  She and I could communicate pretty easily because she had so many sounds that her meanings became clear quickly.

Ducky’s “vocabulary” is more limited.  She whines, makes a little chortling sound when she’s really excited, barks deeply when she’s “protecting us,” and the rest of the time, she squeaks … like a mouse.

It’s a tiny, little squeak.

That squeak has become my new alarm clock.  I awaken to it nearly every morning.  It’s a soft, gentle squeak, but I hear it nonetheless.  It gets the job done.

We all have the ability to make that kind of sound in the world.  We all have something to say (be it with words or a talent or a physical skill).  And we may not say it as loudly as someone who has fame, but we say it.  And thanks to my memory of Kevin Carroll, I now know that our little squeaks are enough.

It’s not what we’re saying.  It’s the energy behind what we’re saying.

It’s not what we’re doing.  It’s the enthusiasm with which we do it.

That’s why action from willpower is useless.  That’s why action must come from passion.

So will The Joyful Springer be a megaphone for my dog-based wisdom squeaks?  I don’t know.  But I believe it’s possible.  And that’s a good start for moving me into alignment with becoming the woman who changes people’s lives with dogged devotion to canine wisdom.

The truth is that we don’t have to shout.  In fact, shouting is counterproductive.  It’s WANTING instead of allowing.  When we just put out our happy little squeak and trust in the law of attraction to do the rest, we take our place in the big, noisy world.

Do you believe in your squeak?

I love comments and welcome yours.  To leave a comment, click on the “comments” link (it will say “No comments or “1 comment” or more) at the end of the tags in “Posted in” at the end of this post.

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The other day, a law of attraction blog writer I recently discovered and have quickly come to enjoy, Jeannette Maw, wrote a post called Choosing a High-Vibe Tribe.

The post was about the concept of “tribal consciousness,” the group-think that occurs when we plug into a society, organization, family or other structure and we let the belief systems within those structures define what is or isn’t possible for us.

Jeannette referred to Wayne Dyer’s and Deepak Chopra’s reminder that many of the illnesses and circumstances we think are inevitable are misconceptions caused by tribal beliefs.  She said she agrees with Dyer’s and Chopra’s advice to opt out of such group consciousness, but she also suggested that we might find a tribe that could be a support.

Although I agree that it IS possible to find a supportive group of people who think more in terms of possibility rather than limitation, I still think choosing to be a lone wildcat, so to speak, is a better idea.

The whole “tribe” concept brings back memories of my college days.  The College of William and Mary’s athletic teams are called the “Tribe.” So, in full green and gold support for my alma mater, I’m all for Tribe.

I’m sure not suggesting that we disconnect ourselves from support systems.  Even lone wildcats need loving connections.  BUT here’s the problem with fully hooking into a tribe, any tribe:

Limitations of Tribe

No tribe has your desires as their number one priority.  No tribe can vibrate on a match with what you want and what’s right for you. Each one of us must find our own alignment with our own higher self and thereby create what is right for us.

No one can create your reality except you. Even though a tribe can provide caring support, it can also tear you down.

If you’re fully hooked into your tribe, you will, probably subconsciously, let that tribe put bars around you.  You’ll let that tribe determine what is and isn’t possible in the world.  You can’t help but let that happen.  When you fully hook into a tribe, you put your focus on the “what is” of that tribe, and what you put your focus on is what you get back.

I believe it’s possible to find a group of people who are fully “tuned in, tapped in, and turned on,” to use Abraham-Hick’s words, but I have yet to find such a group that remains consistently in that place … probably because we’re all, well, human.  Even in the most positive of groups, someone at some time will likely go astray from positive thought and try to lead you along.  If you’re fully ensconced in the tribe, you’ll go.

Karen Money Williams, in her great blog, Abraham Fun, provided an excellent example of this the other day in her post, The Light Side of the Dark Chasers.  The post was about a new book about the shadow side of the psyche, a book that suggests you go digging around in your past for the more negative aspects of yourself.  Oprah, the self-proclaimed head of a supposedly positive spiritual tribe, has hooked into this book and is touting it.  If you were blindly following Oprah’s tribe, as some do, you’d be led wildly astray. Better to be the jaguar that sniffs Oprah from time to time to see if she has anything good.

Personal tribes can be similar.  On the whole, I have supportive friends.  But that doesn’t stop them from making suggestions that are out and out negative or bringing up topics that are complaint-oriented.  Some of my “supportive friends” are even critical of my attempts to make big leaps of faith. (I have one friend who calls my efforts “schemes” and doesn’t think a thing about the label).

I used to be all tied up with what my various tribes thought.  I let our society tell me about the terrible things that would probably happen to me if I so much as stuck my big toe out my front door.  I let my mother’s fears terrify me and friends’ negative opinions stop me from trying things.

No more.

I am wildcat.  Hear me roar.

Wildcat Consciousness

Most wildcats, like jaguars, are independent creatures, generally solitary.  They look out for number one.

Just as we must.

Some call this selfish.  Certainly, Abraham-Hicks receive much criticism for “teaching selfishness.” However, their insistence that we must put our attention on our own vibration and alignment is actually the key to creating a wondrous world for everyone.  Just imagine how smoothly our world would function if we all made our own alignment, via good feeling thoughts, our number one priority?  How could we find our way into conflict and lack if we did that?  We couldn’t.  So by looking out for number one, we look out for the world.

How do you go from tribe member to wildcat?

Remind yourself that every single experience, every single fact, every single bit of reality is created by someone’s vibration.  If you like what you’re looking at, by all means look at it more and find alignment with it.  If you don’t like what you’re looking at, don’t let anyone warn you about it or tell you to be prepared for it.  That’s tribal thought that puts you in a cage.

We are all connected, yes.  But that doesn’t mean that we need to let that connection keep us from running strong and free through the limitless wonder of our world.

I love comments and welcome yours.  To leave a comment, click on the “comments” link (it will say “No comments or “1 comment” or more) at the end of the tags in “Posted in” at the end of this post.

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Okay, so I know yesterday I said the thing to do when you have doubts is to keep swimming.  But as with all the spelling rules that drive Tim nuts, the swimming “rule” has an exception.

Or at least I think it does.

Abraham-Hicks remind us, “Your choices of action may be limited–but your choices of thought are not.”

By the end of Wednesday, I didn’t know what my next best action was.  The actions I was taking, actions intended to promote my revamped novel writing instructional package, didn’t feel good.  I was a bundle of tension, most definitely out of alignment.  I wasn’t choosing helpful thoughts.

I have worked everyday for the last six weeks.  It didn’t feel like work most of the time.  I was having fun, so I didn’t notice I was barreling along.

When I stopped having fun, I noticed.

And thought I gave it a valiant effort, I couldn’t find a thought about what I was doing that felt good.

So I decided it was time for one of my Puppy Days.

Puppy Days Instead of Sick Days

When I worked in the “real world,” I got sick a lot.  I missed one or two or more days of work every month. I wasn’t faking it.  I had physical symptoms of colds, flus, bronchitis … my body was creative in finding ways to give me a break from work.

Because that’s what these illnesses were, I found out after I left my legal writing instructor job.  Once I began working at home and I allowed myself to stop working whenever I felt the need for a break, I stopped getting sick. Nowadays, I get a cold every couple years or so, and that’s about it.

So what’s a Puppy Day?

It’s a do-nothing day.  I usually spend mine in my pjs, curled up with a great novel.

Inspired by the fact that puppies go, go, go and then suddenly collapse in a pile of total relaxation, Puppy Days are my way of recharging.

And they’re my way of shifting my thought vibration.

Because I wasn’t sure what to do next and all my thinking about it was churning me into a negative place, I knew the best thing for me to do was remove my thoughts from the subject completely.  A Puppy Day was just what I needed.  The tension that had been building had dissipated by the end of the day.  I’m still not sure what to do next, but I’m back in a more peaceful place, definitely more aligned, which is the point.

And if You Can’t Take a Puppy Day?

Yesterday, a reader of this blog commented on Facebook, “Even though I’m more of a cat person, I really do enjoy Ande’s blog.”

Mea culpa.

I have been disregarding cat people.

Though I don’t have a cat at the moment, I like cats.  They have every bit as much to teach us as dogs do—they just go about it differently.  Whereas dogs are more like grade school teachers, making the lessons fun and interactive, cats remind me more of my law school professors—generally reserved and far more Socratic in their teaching method.  Cats will give you a hint, but then you have to figure it out for yourself.

The kitty way of finding alignment isn’t that tough to figure out, though.  Just spend an hour or so watching a cat, and you’ll learn some important skills.

First, cats do what they do with pure, intense focus.  Have you ever watched a cat stare at a bird or a spot on the wall?  They know how to control their thoughts and put them right where they want them to be.

Second, cats relish the simple things in life.  Take bathing, for example.  Cats make grooming seem like one step from ecstasy.

Third, cats know how to recharge.  A cat can flop and rest pretty much anywhere.  Though cats are physically capable of great speed and agility, they are just as able to turn into furry noodles.

It’s these skills that can take the place of Puppy Days.

When you can’t get your thoughts to shift, no matter what you do, you need to take a Kitty Break:

1. Spend a minute of total focus on something you appreciate.
2. Do some simple task, like putting on hand lotion or brushing your hair, and let it soothe you
3. Take five minutes to deliberately relax every muscle in your body, or if you can, grab a 15 minute or longer nap

These little shifts in energy can help you get access to higher-vibrational thoughts.

When it comes to living in the sea of abundance that surrounds us, for sure we need to keep swimming.  But once in while, we need to drift into the thoughts that help us align with who we really are.

I love comments and welcome yours.  To leave a comment, click on the “comments” link (it will say “No comments or “1 comment” or more) at the end of the tags in “Posted in” at the end of this post.

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