The Secret Is Wags

A few days ago, Tim and I met with an attorney and provided him with all the paperwork and information he needs to prepare to file my Chapter 7 bankruptcy.  Before that appointment, I had about three weeks to get used to the idea that last year at this time, I thought I had more than $50,000 in the bank and no balances running on my credit cards and now here I am filing bankruptcy because of something dumb that my own husband did, something that ran up all my cards and ran down the bank account.

I realize now that I’ve spent the last ten months in shock.  When you think you’re trucking along doing just fine and then you get gobsmacked with a “what is” reality that seems to have erupted from the ground beneath your feet like a malevolent alien, shock is a reasonable response, for sure.  But it’s not all that helpful to stay stuck in shock for a long time. Shock isn’t exactly a positive vibration. (more…)

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Imagine a cute little toddler who is learning to walk.  She’s gotten to a point where she can pull herself upright.  She can take herky-jerky steps, those steps that always remind me of the lurching gate of the Stay-Puff Marshmallow Man.  She can careen a few feet before she plops on her adorable tush. She does this over and over, stumbling, tripping, falling, trying again.

Tell me, would you ever, in a million years, consider screaming at this sweet child, “Get up and RUN, damn you!”?  Of course not.

But this is what we tend to do to ourselves when we’re learning a new skill.

Living in awareness of the law of attraction, using thought deliberately to align with desires, is a new skill. We weren’t taught how to do this when we were small and eager to learn (at least I wasn’t).

When it comes to focused thought, we are toddlers.

I’d forgotten that, and I was expecting of myself more than I could do.

This last weekend, I embraced my toddlerhood, and I feel so much better.

What do I mean? (more…)

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Thirty-two years ago, Tim and I fell for each other during a Christmas break party at a friends’ house.  We were both eighteen.  We had a hot, romantic, two-week relationship that we intended to continue, but Tim’s experiences in Army Basic Training took him in another direction.

He doesn’t remember any of that.

Nine years ago, I found Tim.  He was in North Carolina.  We had a hot, romantic one-month internet and telephone connection that culminated in his arrival at my home and finally continued that relationship we started 23 years before.

He doesn’t remember that either.

Eight years ago today, Tim and I got married in a moving Celtic ceremony, in which he sang to me so beautifully that I and everyone else in attendance, cried.  We exchanged intimate vows, and the minister bound our hands with silken rope using the Celtic handfasting ritual.  It was the best day of our lives.

He doesn’t remember it.

Doctors and others we’ve encountered since Tim’s head injury are fascinated by Tim’s nearly complete memory loss.  What intrigues them the most is that in spite of remembering nothing about his past with me, knowing nothing of why he fell in love with me in the first place, Tim’s love for me is deep and unwavering.

“But you don’t remember falling for her,” people protest.  “You don’t remember marrying her.  For all you know, she’s making up your history and your marriage.  She could just be some woman who claims to be your wife.”

Some people watch too many TV movies. (more…)

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In Complaint Free Relationships, which I read last weekend, Will Bowen references narrative psychology, a field built on the belief that the stories we tell about ourselves shape our identities and ultimately our lives.  I hadn’t thought about narrative psychology in years, but I learned about it in college (I majored I psychology).

The idea is that we take the experiences we have in our lives, and we create a narrative around them, a story that connects the experiences and attaches meaning to them.  It’s a sort of connect the dots thing we do to hook random events together to create “truth” where none really exists.

Once we create our story, we look for experiences to reinforce our story.  We also filter new experiences through that story.

I mentioned in the post, Throwing Away The Drill, that for much of my life, my story was “I’m not good enough.”  My story was more complicated than that, obviously.  It had a lot of subplots about who I am as a wife, a friend, a writer, a dog mom, etc.  But that was the theme of my story.

That’s not my story anymore, but my new one isn’t a whole lot better.  And I wasn’t even aware of this lousy story until I saw that passage about narrative psychology.  Then the title of my narrative flashed across the wide screen of my mind, with nice bright graphics behind it:  “I Have Succeeded At Anything In Years.”  Can’t you just hear the dirge-like, heavy musical score with lots of slow oboe and tuba action in it that goes behind that title.  Maybe some nice screechy violins too.

When you have a narrative like this, you create a cast of characters for it.  These are the qualities and feelings that you that you associate with your story.  Here’s part of the cast that’s been starring in my story:

• Failure (Big hairy dude with bad teeth)
• Disappointed (Sniveling petite woman who blinks a lot)
• Frustrated (Freckled kid who chews on her nails)
• Doubtful (Old woman with a perpetual frown who carries mace in her huge old purse)
• Angry (Big, big, big woman who eats Hostess cupcakes all day and growls like a dog)
• Lousy Marketer (Weasel-like bald guy who corners people in elevators to sell them vitamins)
• Worn Out (Thin woman with stringy hair and narcolepsy)
• Terrified (Shrill blonde with red lipstick who’s constantly looking over her shoulder)

I could go on, but you get the idea.

Is it any wonder I’ve not been getting what I want lately?  How can I with a story like that?

The law of attraction responds to how we feel now, not how we want to feel.  When you have a lousy tale, you don’t feel good enough to wag your tail.  If you’re not wagging your tail, you’re not attracting things you want.

If we want new experiences, we need to tell a new story.

So here’s my new story (inspired by one of Tim’s favorite slang words):

“Ande ROCKS!!”

Like it?

It sure makes ME feel good.

Here’s my new cast of characters (I won’t bother to describe them—they’re all vibrant, beautiful (in their own way), funky, and fun):

• Amazing
• Enthusiastic
• Ecstatic
• Radiant
• Energetic
• Fascinating
• Wise
• Funny
• Rare
• Insightful
• Brilliant
• Creative
• Blessed
• Blissful
• Charming
• Pioneering
• Joyful
• Kind
• Inspirational
• Intentional
• Loving
• Appreciative

and several more; but the star of the show is ……..

• HAPPY

And the new music for my story?  Here you go:

Fast Tube by Casper

And the graphic? How about this?

I’ve started living from this story instead of the dark one I’ve been telling myself for months.  When you live from a story, you look at your experiences from the perspective of this story.

So whatever happens to me, I have to filter it through “Ande ROCKS!” and my cast of characters.  This forces me to put a whole different spin on my experiences.

What about you?

What’s your story?

Who stars in it?

How does it affect your life?

Got a great story?  Tell me.

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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So I’m thinking about this post in the shower this morning.  I’m going to write about action, how it can help … and how it can hurt.

I boot up my computer, check my e-mail, and what do I find? Today’s Abraham-Hicks quote:

“Is it possible to be the visionary and the actionary of your own life? Not only possible, it’s the way most of you intended it to be. It’s the best of all worlds. What can be more exhilarating than to find a dream from the contrast, to fixate on the dream and let it give you pleasure as it grows, and then to watch Law of Attraction bring it into manifestation while you help with your action? Does it get any better than that? You didn’t think so as you made the decision to come forth into these physical bodies. You said, ‘This is the best time in all eternity for a Creator to Create.’”

Don’t you love the law of attraction? I’m thinking of a subject; I get a quote on that subject.

It IS the best of all worlds to be in action on your dream.  I know this.  It’s totally exhilarating.  It’s the vortex, the flow downstream, the alignment with nonphysical energy … all those things we want to be in.

Last year about this time, Tim and I did some superficial remodeling of our house.  It’s something I’d been thinking about doing for awhile. I’d been imagining the changes I wanted to make for months.  I wanted new paint, new window coverings, reorganization, some new furniture, a new sink, revamping the kitchen, etc.  When we got our insurance settlement from my accident and I thought we were in better shape financially than we were (Tim was hiding things from me; but that’s another story), I decided to take action on my vision.  For three months, we painted and refinished, I scoured the internet for deals and I sewed new window coverings, and Tim built furniture. Lots and lots of action.  But it was WONDERFUL.  It didn’t seem like effort.  We had long days and did lots of physical “work,” but when I woke up in the morning, I felt like a kid who was planning to be on a playground all day.

This is inspired doing—vision and action so intricately entwined that they meld together to create that perfect blend of joyous sensation.

But what about uninspired doing?

Should we be in action if it doesn’t feel this good?

Should we DO something that we think will take us to what we want when the doing isn’t something that lights us up?  Like exercising because we’re supposed to or eating carrots because they’re healthy, like joining clubs because it’s expected of us, like getting a degree because our parents want us to …. you get the idea.  Is this what we should do?

No, no, no.

I’ve learned this the hard way.  There is a very high cost to doing from a place of misalignment. And if you’re doing something just because you think it will get you something you want but take no pleasure from the doing, you are doing from a place of misalignment.

This sort of action is:

A Surefire Way of Creating Negative Thoughts

I had a vision when I started writing novels.  The vision was that I would eventually sell a book, and once I had an editor, I’d easily sell every book I wrote thereafter.  I sold that first novel to Bantam, but the novel ended up being categorized (by the publisher) as “chick lit.”  Once you sell a book in a genre, especially when you’re starting out, you need to stick to that genre.  This is how the publishers market authors.  They create a following.  You can’t create a following (say the publishers) when you’re genre-hopping.

Well, I hadn’t known my novel was chick lit when I wrote it (I thought it was sci fi), and I had no interest in chick lit. But I FORCED myself to write another chick lit manuscript.  My editor didn’t like it.  Well written, she said, but the main character didn’t engage her, and the story felt forced.

You think?

See what happens when you drag yourself through doing something?

My life blew up around me—Tim and his head injury and the aftermath of that sucked up money, and I had to DO something.  I lost sight of any vision, any dream.  I just ran around like a spastic cheerleader, embarking on one entrepreneurial enterprise after another.  I didn’t enjoy any of them.  I made myself get up in the morning.  I yanked myself around by an invisible rope, a rope tethered to the thoughts, “Oh my God, I need money now, and I can’t sell a manuscript fast enough so I shouldn’t even start one; I must build a business and work 12 hour days …. yada, yada, yada.”

And given the financial situation I’m in now, I can unequivocally say that this kind of action is not a good idea.

Why is it such a waste?  Why wouldn’t all that action create something good even if you don’t feel good about it?

Because all that action, taken from a place of feeling lousy, creates negative thought, and negative thought is upstream, heading away from what you want.

Have you ever been eating something while you read or watch TV and realized after a bit that you don’t even taste what you’re eating?  You’re doing it mindlessly, by rote.

When you’re focused on some action you don’t want to take, your thoughts fall into a negative vibrational pattern.  It’s a sort of low frequency hum of negativity.  It feels like constant tension or irritability or annoyance or frustration or discouragement or depression.  It’s mild, and you get used to it. So you don’t notice it.  Feeling lousy is such a norm that you don’t think to try and feel any better.

And all this low-grade lousiness (like a mild viral infection that hangs on and on but isn’t bad enough that you feel compelled to stop and heal it) is keeping you from finding thoughts that feel really good, thoughts that align with your true self.

It’s like a stalled train.

How To Never Get To Your True Desires

A year before Tim came into my life, I was dating a man who drove me nuts.  We fought all the time.  Why did I keep seeing him?  He was better than nothing … that’s what I told myself.  I said to a friend, “Oh, he’s just someone to spend time with until the right guy comes along.”

My wise friend said, “Imagine a train track in front of your house.  A long, long train is rumbling by.  Your right guy is in one of the train cars.  You stop the train to date this guy, and as long as you’re dating him, the train doesn’t move.  It’s stopped so you can interact with this car.  All your energy is on this guy in this car, and as long as it is, the train can’t continue on; since your guy is in one of the other cars further on down the train, he’ll never get to you.”

I stopped dating the man.  Six months later, Tim rolled into my life.

When we put all our attention on our current action and that action isn’t something we truly want to do, we are clogging up the tracks of our thought. All our attention is going to something that doesn’t light us up, doesn’t inspire, doesn’t raise our vibration to a match with our nonphysical selves and all the wonderful things waiting for us in vibrational escrow.

Action isn’t the way to what we want.  It can help, but it is SECONDARY to our thoughts and often it’s not necessary at all.

Abraham-Hicks says, “When we say, ‘You are creators,’ you think we are talking about creating furniture, or creating houses, or creating empires, or creating relationships. That isn’t what we talk about when we talk about creating. We are talking about the creating of your state of being.  And when you have understood that, and are giving that your dominant attention, then all of the physical trappings of this Universe will fall into alignment in such glorious fashion that you will amaze even yourself. YOU CANNOT DO IT WITH ACTION. IT IS THROUGH FOCUSING UPON HOW YOU WANT TO FEEL.”

So if action is pulling you away from feeling good, it’s stopping your train.  It’s a total and complete waste of time.

Believe me, I am poster girl for what happens when you try to pound out what you want with action.

But what if it seems action IS necessary now, action that you don’t really want to do?

I’m starting to figure out the answer to that.  I’ll talk about it in tomorrow’s post.

What are your experiences with uninspired doing and inspired action?

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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Today’s Abraham-Hicks quote is:

“It’s not your work to make anything happen. It’s your work to dream it and let it happen. Law of Attraction will make it happen. In your joy, you create something, and then you maintain your vibrational harmony with it, and the Universe must find a way to bring it about. That’s the promise of Law of Attraction.”

I’m attempting to find my vibrational harmony with what I want, and part of that process is being sure that I’m on “the path of least resistance.”

The path of least resistance, according to Abraham-Hicks, is the course of action that feels best.

Resistance is what keeps us from having what we want; it’s a vibration that doesn’t match with our desires. It’s those negative feelings that line up with things we don’t want.

When we’re on the path of least resistance, we’re aligned with our nonphysical self, and we’re moving toward what we want. Our vibration matches our desires so the law of attraction can bring those desires to us.

Sometimes, it’s easy to decide what we need to do. One choice feels awkward and uncomfortable, and the other choice makes our heart sing.

Most choices, though, aren’t so clear cut.

In my case, for instance, all my choices suck … or at least that’s how it feels to me.

For over 20 years, I have been focused on living a life of creative and financial freedom. I want to be an author. That’s the work I want to do. I don’t care if that work brings me money or if money comes in some other enjoyable way so I can spend my time writing, but I want to have the freedom to fill my days with writing.

And I want those days to have a leisurely flow to them.

My ideal day goes something like this: I wake up naturally between 7:30 and 8:30. I get up and take a long walk with my dog. I come home and work out. I shower. I have a little snack, and I sit down to write, sometime between 11 and 12. I write until about 6 and stop for the day. I spend my evenings drawing, singing, playing the piano, watching movies, training my dog, playing games and spending time with my husband.

Yes, I know this isn’t how society tells us we should spend our days, but there it is.

For many years, this was how I spent my days.

Then something went wrong. Though I sold three books to large publishers and made some money with my writing, it wasn’t enough to support me. My other financial resources started running out. I tried to sell more books and ended up having terribly negative experiences with agents, editors, publishers, and PR people.

Since I was getting the sense I couldn’t support myself with my writing, Tim and I turned to the internet. We spent the next two years attempting to build a profitable internet business and network marketing business.

At the time of these decisions, I’d kind of forgotten about the law of attraction (even though I did know about it) and the teachings of Abraham-Hicks. I wasn’t thinking in terms of paths of least resistance. Still, I was trying to follow my inner guidance.

Even so, we failed miserably.

I hated doing internet and network marketing. I truly despised it. I kept trying to tell myself to like it. I’d remind myself of the income potential and tell myself, “At least you’re writing” (because I was doing newsletters, articles, and e-books), but I knew I wasn’t doing what I wanted to do.

So I stopped. I took a leap of faith. Even though we were running on financial fumes, I started writing screenplays. I was so excited about the process (“in your joy, you create something”). I was sure I’d succeed. Besides, Tim had decided he was going to win a lottery. He took Abraham’s “it’s as easy to create a castle as it is a button” to heart. He knew he was a lottery winner.

But I didn’t succeed, and he didn’t win.

Then I read Twilight by Stephanie Myer. With all due respect to Myer, I know I write as well or better than she does. I knew I could write a great YA book. So I came up with what I thought was a great, unique plot line, wrote a manuscript and the synopses of all four books in the planned series.

I was sure I’d have it sold by now.

Not only hasn’t it been sold but the agent who was going to represent it decided (after getting me to rewrite it to address issues she had with it) it “wasn’t for her.”

And now we’re out of money.

So in the last couple months, I’ve been doing all this stuff to try and get money.

And I don’t like any of it.

So now, what is my path of least resistance?

We have 3 ½ months of money and no income at the moment.

Do I trust that money will come from someplace and just keep submitting my manuscript and doing things I love and not worry about generating an income in any logical way?

That was my plan at the beginning of this year. I was going to find ways to feel good and trust that the money would come.

Then friends started suggesting ways to bring in money: do editing for pay, look for freelance writing work, go out and get a job at McDonald’s.

I decided that made sense (it didn’t feel good, but it made logical sense). So for 6 weeks, I’ve been trying to get a freelance gig that pays something other than pennies per hour. I’ve submitted many proposals and haven’t landed a gig.

So I dropped my coaching rates really low and sent a promotion to people on my writing tips mailing list. Seven people decided to take me up on it. It helped me get some money, which is great.

But here’s the problem.

I really don’t enjoy writing coaching.

I have a couple clients I enjoy (one of you knows who you are ), but most of the coaching work I do is very tough work and I have to make myself do it.

Then there are the other avenues Tim and I are exploring. I don’t like them either.

We are submitting my manuscript, but so far, we’re just getting rejections. The submission process is slow (see how I’m aligning with what I don’t want??)

I find myself facing many paths of resistance:

1. Don’t do anything to create an income; trust that I will sell a book in time (the odds of that are something akin to winning a lottery).

2. Don’t do anything to create an income; trust that Tim will win the lottery as he vehemently claims he will.

3. Pursue one of 3 paths I’ve thought of so far to bring in money, none of which make me feel good at all.

None of these paths feel good. The first two sound good, but I have too much fear that what I want won’t happen in time, and so I know that’s not a place of alignment.

The last path has the potential for income, but at what price? Me spending my days doing things I don’t want to do?

As Abraham says, you can’t put a smiley face on top of an empty gas gauge and expect to be okay. Pretending doesn’t work. I can’t make myself feel happy about doing things I truly don’t want to do.

Anyone have any words of wisdom to share? Any experience with taking the non-action path and lining up with what you want so the universe brings it to you? Any experience with finding a way to feel good about something you currently feel lousy about?

I’d like to attract some ideas that can help me find a path of least resistance. I just can’t seem to get myself to skip gaily down any of the paths that lay before me now.

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The experiment is perking along.  The scientist is gathering data.  All is well in Labsville.

But then …

The monkey gets out of his cage and frees the rats and the mice.  The rats and the mice turn on all the Bunsen burners.  The animals break the glass and escape.  The flames ignite chemicals in glass vials all over the lab.  Ka-BLAM!  The lab explodes.

What does the scientist do?

She wails and moans (surely).  She cleans up (hopefully).  And she starts over (if she’s determined.

Welcome to my destroyed lab.

I’m somewhere between the wail and moan phase and the clean-up phase.

My lab isn’t a place full of monkeys and rats and mice.  It has no Bunsen burners or vials of chemicals (though certain chemicals could be helpful at this point J).

My lab is life.  And the experiment was:  make my top priority finding reasons to feel good to see if feeling good is the secret to creating the life you desire.

In order to test my hypothesis, one element must be in place.  I MUST feel good.

Yesterday, I stopped feeling good about noon.  I tried to find relief and get back to feeling good.  I stopped and wrote about Ducky.  I used the chi machine.  I had a healthy, yummy meal with Tim and we talked about things we want.

I still didn’t feel better.

I looked around the house at things I appreciate.  I cuddled with Ducky.  Tim and I watched a show that makes us feel good (Extreme Home Makeover).  I still didn’t feel good.

In fact, the more I tried to feel good, the worse I felt.

I was sucked back into the previous year, remembering how I felt at the start of last year, thinking that the year was so filled with promise.  We’d received this great insurance settlement.  We were fixing up the house.  I thought I had months of freedom and time ahead of me to do my writing without pressure.  I thought we were on the verge of something amazing.  Truly, I did.

Then in August, I discovered my sense of freedom was an illusion.  We had no money and all our credit cards were charged to the hilt.  I went from happy and focused to devastated and confused.

Now, we get 10 to 20 creditor calls a day.  They’re like little Red Alert sirens going off in the background, yanking me out of my everything’s-going-to-be-okay place.

The books and screenplays I’ve written are stalled on someone’s desk—no sales yet.

And yes, I know I’m telling it like it is, not like how I want it to be.  Which is why I feel so lousy.

I got hung up on the intentions, I think.  Abraham says to intend your way through your day—they call it segment intending:  decide what you want before you go into each part of your day.  I’ve tried this many times off and on through the last few years.  I’ve yet to have a day go the way I intended it to go.  So I get pissed off (I don’t think that’s part of the process).

Then there’s that placemat process—you put on one side of the page what you’ll absolutely do that day and on the other side of the page, you write down what you want the universe to do.  I’ve done that many times too, and I’ve yet to have the universe do anything on its list.

Still, I’m a determined woman.  So yesterday, I tried again.  I got up and intended that I’d easily find a freelance writing opportunity, one that paid well.  I’d apply and get the job and I’d be on track to make enough money to give us some security while Tim gets himself lined up with that lottery he keeps telling me he feels like he’s won.  I put getting me those jobs on the universe’s side of the to do list.

By late afternoon, I was slogging through 38 pages of how-to-use-Elance so I could take a stupid test on how to use their site, and I was NOT having a good time.  I was having a MISERABLE time.  It didn’t feel good at all.  I tried to find a new attitude.  All new attitudes were in hiding.

Everything came crashing down on me.  This is NOT the life I envisioned.  I’m on the verge of 50 years old.  I’ve worked for 20 years to be a successful writer.  I thought I had it made when I broke into the big publishing world.  I sold books and was sure my career was taking off.  I was wrong.  I threw every bit of my energy into building a business.  I failed.  I thought I understood how to attract what I wanted, and I attracted a freak accident that left me with a permanent limp and an ankle that hurts pretty much all the time.

I’m PISSED OFF!!!!!

Ka-BLAM!  That’s when the lab exploded.

So much for feeling good.

I cried off and on all evening.  Even Ducky’s sweet attempts to comfort me (head on my shoulder, little tail wags, a nose to my neck that said, “I’m here; it’s okay.”) didn’t help.

Abraham and many spiritual writers talk about what Abraham calls “the path of least resistance.”  This means that for all you do, you find the path that feels the best.  Trust your gut, your instinct.  You know when a course of action feels good and when it doesn’t.

But what if neither course of action feels good?  What if you can’t find one that feels good?

There’s where I am.  That’s the monkey that started all the mischief in my lab.

Scrabbling for these writing jobs doesn’t feel good.  Call me a writing snob, but I’ve worked too hard for too long and developed a skill set that is too valuable to be jumping through hoops so I can bid on projects that don’t compensate me well enough.  I HATE the idea.  I HATE the process.  It makes me feel yucky and very, very small.  It makes me feel like a failure.

And yes, I know that nothing can MAKE me feel anything.  So, I’ll rephrase that.  I am allowing myself to feel small and like a failure.

So my other choice is to keep churning out book proposals because I enjoy doing that, even though I know none of these can lead to a sale within the time I need such a sale.  I need money coming in before April to stave off disaster.  The book industry doesn’t move that fast unless you’re a celebrity in the middle of a scandal or a criminal who’s done something heinous and gotten away with it.

So that path doesn’t feel right.

Do I just enjoy myself—return to my drawing and piano playing and walking my dog and taking long baths and trust that Tim won’t let me down?  Believe that he’ll win that lottery?

But I don’t believe that he’ll win in the next two months.  I know it’s POSSIBLE—but do I feel like I can count on it?  No way.  He’s been telling me he’s going to win for over two years.  Why would he finally do it now?

So that path doesn’t feel right.

Are there other paths?  Probably, but I don’t see them now.

Sell the house, move to another place and get a job.  HATE that idea.

I love my house and where I live.  I had this place built to my specifications.  I created this lifestyle.  When I think about leaving it, I feel like I’m going to throw up.  That’s not a feel good path, obviously.

So what is my path of least resistance?  I thought I had it figured out.  Get freelance work.

Yesterday I found out that the path to freelance work doesn’t feel good either.

So I’m stuck.

And that’s why my lab exploded.

My goal was to feel good for 30 days and see what that brought me.  I didn’t even last 11 days.  Experiment tainted.  Data in ashes.

What do I do?

Start over.

I must.

But what’s the path that leads me to that feel good place?

I don’t know yet.

So for right now, I’m moaning and cleaning up.

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I was a fat baby.  Black hair, dark eyes, big belly—I looked like a miniature sumo wrestler.

I was a skinny kid.  I saw myself as fat.

I was a lanky teen.  I saw myself as fat.

I was a slender young woman.  I saw myself as fat.

I went on my first diet when I was 11-years old.  My mother was dieting—counting calories—so I did too, even though I wasn’t overweight.  (At that point I was taller than all the other kids and more developed—I had curves—they made me nervous—I thought I could diet them away.)

I was an avid reader of Teen and Seventeen magazines.  And I wasn’t stupid.  I knew slender was the thing to be.  Fat was bad.  Skinny was good.

I wasn’t as skinny as the girls in the magazines.

I am 5’ 7”.  In high school, I weighed between 123 and 128 pounds.  I was a size 7.  That was OBESE!  The girls in the magazines were 5’ 10” or taller and weighed 115 pounds.

My mother told me she had a 23” waist before I was born.  I had a 25” waist on a good day.  Like I said:  obese.

I alternated between starvation diets and binge eating all through high school and college.  I exercised like a maniac and ate pizza like a trucker.

Every time I saw a fat woman, I cringed.  How could she have let herself get like that?

In college, I was accused of having a hollow leg.  I could eat gargantuan amounts of food, and I stayed slim.

Then it caught up with me.  I got to 135.  Went on a diet.  Back down to 123.  Up to 140.  On a diet.  Back to 125.  Up to 145.  On a diet.  Back to 125.  Up to 150.  On a diet.  Back to 128.  Up to 155.  On a diet.  Back to 130. …..

Do you see a pattern?

I did, but I wasn’t too upset about it.  I was more thin than not.  I was an expert at dieting.  I knew if I binged to a high weight, I could get back down.  As long as I never got REALLY FAT, as in over 200 pounds.

I did that when I was 36 years old.  Idled between a size 22 and a size 12 for a few years.

Kept thinking I was too big.

I saw fat thighs, a big butt, cellulite, a thick middle.

I finally hit 250.  I had fat thighs, a big butt, cellulite, a thick middle.

I am a master creator.

I had felt fat for years, been afraid of fat, worked to avoid fat, felt sorry for people who were fat.  And with all that focus on fat (even though I didn’t want it), I created fat.

If I ever doubt Abraham’s teachings, I look in the mirror.  I have never felt skinny.  Hence, I couldn’t remain skinny.

I know we get what we focus on.  We get it whether we want it or not.  Fighting against something (hmm—do wars against cancer, terrorism, drugs, and violence come to mind?) makes it get bigger.  Our thoughts are the vibrational attraction point.  It doesn’t matter if we want the thing we’re thinking about it or we don’t want it—if we’re focused on it, it’s on its way to us.

The reason I’m so committed to this blog (even though I have plenty of other things to keep me busy) is that I know my fear of losing the life I have and of running out of money is pulling those things right to me.  My thoughts are of what I don’t want.

I have to turn that around.  When I feel good, I’m not thinking of those things.  My emotion is a barometer of my focus.  You can’t think about something you don’t want and feel good at the same time.

My fat is a great achievement of creating reality.

But I have better things to create.

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So I know experts don’t know it all.  I know we live in a world of focused thought equals creation.

But ….

I’m surrounded by people interacting with the world from a facts are facts viewpoint.

Ever listen to sports analysts?  They are SO vehement about what is and isn’t possible in any given game.  Because this team hasn’t done such and such this year, they can’t possibly win this game.  Look at their injuries.  Look at their record against such and such kind of teams.  These are the FACTS.

If you cut yourself, you must do this.  If you have a leaky pipe, you must do that.  If you get in a car wreck, you have to do this.  If you have an illness, you must do that.

It’s all laid out for us.  Facts, facts, facts.

It’s tough not to believe in them.

I know my world can be so much more.  But I keep looking at those facts.

I’m sitting on the fence between the world of energy vibration and the world of rational action.

I’ve sat on this fence so long, squirming this way to look at “so what if the orthopedic surgeon says my ankle will never get better, I know I can walk normally again”, then shifting that way to look at “two surgeons have said this is as good as my ankle will get.”

From vision to fact.  From vision to fact.  From vision to fact.

I sit on the fence and squirm.

Do we live in a world of creating or do we live in a “real world” of facts we have to work around?

Like I said, the evidences supports a world of creation but the vast majority of the population lives in the “real world,” so we’re bombarded by real world stuff.

It’s mostly in the form of warnings.  Don’t do this, or that will happen.  Do this if you want that.

My mother loves to issue warnings.  So does Reader’s Digest.  So does the TV.

All very helpful stuff.  There’s a virus out there; get a shot.  Terrorists want to blow up our planes; search everything and take away the tweezers.  The economy is a mess; don’t quit your job.

Is this our world?

I don’t think so.

Maybe this experiment I’m about to do will help me get off the fence and live in the lush grassy field of thought equals creation.

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I have spent literally thousands of dollars on books.  If I have a problem or want to do something, the first thing I do is run out and buy a book on how to solve the problem or do what I want to do.  If I can’t find a book on what I want to know, I go looking for a person who has experienced what I’m experiencing or knows what I want to know how to do.

In other words, I go looking for an expert.  In this respect, I’m pretty normal.

It’s what we all do.

Why do we love magazines?  Because they are filled with so much yummy advice.

Why do we love the Internet so much?  Because it makes it so easy to find out what other people think about the problem we’re trying to solve or the skill we’re trying to learn.

If you want to buy something, what’s the first thing you do?  If you’re like me and many others, you research what you’re thinking of buying; and that research includes finding out what other people think about the thing you want to buy.

If you’re sick, what do you do?  See a doctor.

Have a legal problem?  See a lawyer.

Plumbing issue?  Call a plumber.

All of this is perfectly reasonable.

But it’s also a little misguided … or at the least, very, very limiting.

Why?

It all goes back to “we create our own reality.”

Think about it.

Every single thing that exists in our world came to be because someone focused on it.  Someone desired something, thought about it, and aligned with it, and created a way to get it.

Every single thing.

All those scientific experiments that provide PROOF that certain things must be the way they are?  They’re just someone’s creation.

Ever wonder why they tell you coffee is bad for you one year and tell you it’s good for you the next?  It’s because all those studies they do to tell you what’s good and what’s bad are done by different individuals.  Each individual has his or her own take on the subject and his or her own vibrational alignment, and the results in the study are directly impacted by that take and vibration.

Here’s what I’ve come to understand:  there are no facts.

Nothing is ABSOLUTELY TRUE.

Everything we take to be true, we take to be true because someone else has taken it to be true and by focusing on that truth has created evidence of it.

If you really take a good look at what’s going on in our world and what has gone on in our past history, you’ll see that this has to be the case.  How else do you explain the never ending shifting of so-called facts?

Example:  Why are there so many diet books?  If a diet was a fact, wouldn’t it work for everyone?

The truth is there are as many ways to lose and gain weight as there are people in our world.  It’s all a matter of focus and alignment.

So does that mean we throw out all the books?

Of course not.  Experts can give us valuable information, great ideas that can help us create what we want.

I still read reviews before I buy products.  I still read books.

But here’s what I’ve learned to do with those reviews and those books.  Instead of taking every little bit of advice as “fact,” I read the information the same way I’d look at a grocery store aisle.  It’s all real, but do I want everything there?  Is it all right for me?

I pick and choose what advice I’ll take.  If I don’t like the horror story viewpoint of how something has to be done, I find another way to do it.

For example, I’ve read experts in selling novels say that you absolutely cannot sell a book to a big publisher without an agent.  I sold my novel to Bantam without an agent.

I can create whatever I want.  I keep repeating this to myself, like a mantra.

Wilber and Orville knew it.  Roger Banister knew it.  Edison knew it.  Just because it hasn’t been done doesn’t mean it can’t be done.

The experts only know what has worked for them.  They don’t have all the answers.  I refuse to let them tell me what I can and can’t do.

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