The Secret Is Wags

A year ago today, my beloved 17 year old Springer Spaniel, Muggins, passed away.  When we left her lifeless body at the vet, I didn’t think I’d have the strength to draw another breath.  It was as if all the air in the universe had been sucked away.

Passage Through Grief

On this day a year ago, I felt sadness, grief, and despair of such intensity that all the words in the world can’t describe it.  “How do I get through the next minute?” I asked Tim through my tears. (more…)

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Tim and I are in our car.  He’s driving. I’m gazing out the passenger side window.

Tim says, “Is he any good?”

“What?” I ask.

I have no idea what he’s talking about.  We haven’t been having a conversation.  We’ve been riding in silence.

“Is he any good?” Tim repeats as if hearing the question again will clear it up for me.

“Is who any good?”

“Him,” Tim waves a hand toward the windshield.

“What?  Who?” I look directly in front of the car for some invisible “him” I’m supposed to evaluate.

“The sign.” Tim waves a hand toward the windshield again.

My gaze extends further ahead.  I see a banner hanging across the road. It announces Clint Black’s upcoming performance at a nearby casino.

“Clint Black?” I ask.

Tim nods.

I give him my opinion of Clint Black, for what it’s worth, and I ask him what made him think I would have any idea what he was talking about.  He says, “I figured you were looking at what I was looking at.”

DA DUM! Did you hear that big orchestral crescendo that denotes something important? (more…)

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I know the law of attraction is one of the energetic laws that bring order to the universe.  I don’t believe it.  I know it.

Even though I know it, however, I have doubts.

These doubts aren’t about the existence of the law of attraction. They’re about my understanding of how to think and feel in a way that makes the law of attraction a positive force in my life instead of a negative one.

The basics of law of attraction’s impact on us are simple:

1.     Think thoughts that match up vibrationally with what you desire.

2.     The better a thought feels to you, the better it matches up with things you want.

Simple … but at least for me, it’s the most difficult thing I’ve ever attempted to learn how to do. (more…)

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I announced yesterday that I’ve found the place of exhilaraxation, even in the face of a contrary what is.  This is new for me.  But not so much for my husband, Tim.

Tim has been in this place for months.

Tim has felt like he already has what he wants.  So he wants nothing.  He decided he could have it, became it, and has been a happy camper ever since.

In other words, he’s in Abraham-Hicks’ “vortex.”  He’s aligned with all he is and with all he desires.

So, asked a friend the other night, “Why hasn’t he won his lottery yet?  Why doesn’t he have lots of money?  Why hasn’t it worked yet?”

I used to agonize over this question.  It gave me fits.

When I asked Tim the question, he said, “I refuse to go there.  It turns my boat upstream”

He’s right, of course.

But how do you NOT ask that question?

We’re practicing all this good feeling stuff in order to get what we want, right?

Well … yes and no.

We practice feeling good in order to get what we want.  But we want what we want because we believe it will make us feel good.  So actually, if you think about it, we’re really just practicing feeling good in order to feel good.

When I keep this in mind, I have no need to ask the question, “Why hasn’t it worked yet?”

And if I do ask it, I can now answer, “It HAS worked … because I feel good!”

Abraham-Hicks say that if you have 100 things that you want and you never speak or think about those things but you put all your attention on one thing that makes you feel good, all 100 things MUST come to you.

Why?

It is LAW … the law of attraction.  The law of attraction must bring us that which we desire when we are a match to it.  The ONLY thing keeping us from all we desire is resistance.  We know we’re feeling resistance when we feel negative emotion.

Remember I am what I am?  My inner being BECOMES what I desire the minute I desire it.  All I have to do is get into alignment with it, and I do that by feeling like I already have what I want, which ultimately is feeling good.

So by focusing on one thing that feels great, we have gotten what we want.

It has worked!

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 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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Yesterday, Greg, made some great comments about fear on the post, Still Complaint Free (Mostly). He quoted author, Guy Finley’s discussion of the way we embrace fear and make it our friend, thus allowing its power to unplug us from the divine energy that is meant to flow through us.

I had a realization when I read Greg’s comment.  I discovered that I am no longer fearful.

When I started this blog at the beginning of the year, I was terrified. I truly thought I was on the verge of losing my house and my way of life.  I had no idea how I’d get the money I needed to keep us going after the first of March.

I started this blog as a way to process my intention to find alignment with my nonphysical self, the part of me who knows everything is just fine and in fact has everything and is living everything, on a vibrational level, that I desire.

In the past few weeks, I have experienced huge shifts in the way I feel, and more positive experiences are flowing my way as a result.

We’ve received enough money, from writing coaching fees, a loan from my parents, and some blog donations, to keep us afloat into June. And am I afraid of what will happen after that?  Amazingly, no.  I know something will fall into place.  I don’t know what that something will be, but I know we’ll be okay.

So this is good.  I’m no longer fearful.

But …..

Yesterday evening, I was rushing to finish up some work so I could join Tim in the kitchen to fix our dinner, and I noticed I was tense.  When I got to the kitchen (it was about 7:30), I said to Tim (in keeping with our no complain rule, I was careful with how I chose my words), “I want to have a lifestyle where I can work at a comfortable pace and stop for the day before 6 p.m.  I want to work on my books, and I want to draw.  I have no interest in being a ghostwriter or marketer or writing coach.”

I really did try to keep my tone light, but my eyes filled with tears.  Why was I crying?

What was I feeling?

I stopped and checked in and discovered I was angry.  Very, very angry.

I am no longer fearful, but I’m angry about having to do the work I’m doing.  I am back in the internet marketing world, a world I deliberately walked away from at the end of 2007.  I am revamping websites, trying to drive traffic to a site, redoing sales pages, creating sales videos … all the things I consciously left behind because I didn’t enjoy them.

And now I’m pissed.  Really pissed.

How did I get back here?  Why didn’t our plans work out?

Okay, this doesn’t sound good, does it?  Doesn’t sound like vibrational alignment.

And it isn’t.  But it’s an improvement.

I’ve gone from fear to anger.  I’ve moved up some on the emotional scale.

The Emotional Scale

Abraham-Hicks’ emotional guidance scale, from the book Ask and It is Given, looks like this:

• Joy/Appreciation/Empowered/Freedom/Love
• Passion
• Enthusiasm/Eagerness/Happiness
• Positive Expectation/Belief
• Optimism
• Hopefulness
• Contentment
• Boredom
• Pessimism
• Frustration/Irritation/Impatience
• Overwhelment
• Disappointment
• Doubt
• Worry
• Blame
• Discouragement
• Anger
• Revenge
• Hatred/Rage
• Jealousy
• Insecurity/Guilt/Unworthiness
• Fear/Grief/Depression/Despair/Powerlessness

As you can see, anger is five rungs above fear, so I’m moving up.

Abraham talks often about finding relief a little bit at a time.  It’s inadvisable, they say, to try to vault from fear to joy.  Any time you can improve your emotions just a little, you’re moving into alignment.

I have spent a lot of time at the top of the scale lately.  I get these peeks at appreciation and love and joy more and more throughout my days. But sometimes, when I look too much at what is, I slip down again.

I’m not slipping all the way to fear, though, and I call that a victory, especially given the precarious “facts” of our situation.

Those facts don’t concern me anymore.

Choosing Better Feeling Thoughts

I’m creating a new story, and my anger has shown me I’m experiencing contrast that is spurring me to be even more specific in my story.

So since I won’t complain (whining about the work I’m doing would be my old pattern, but whining is just squeaky complaining, so I can’t do that), I need to choose new thoughts.  Here I go:

Although the work I’m doing right now isn’t my first choice, I’m grateful for the contrast it’s providing, contrast that’s showing me what I really want to do.  I know I hated this type of work in the past, but I could choose to find something good about it now.  I could clean up my vibration about internet marketing and find the fun in it.  I am enjoying the networking I’ve been doing on Facebook and Twitter.  I hadn’t expected that to be fun and yet it is, so maybe internet marketing can be fun too.

Going back through my e-book has given me a sense of accomplishment because I’m remembering just how much good information is in the book, and that is giving me more confidence to sell it.

The better I feel about the work I’m doing, the faster I’ll get to the work I really want to do.  So I’m going to find the positive aspects of this work.

One of the best positive aspects is that Ducky gets to hang out with me while I work and I can pet her as much as I want.  That feels really good.  I think I’ll just focus on that for awhile.  I can’t feel anger and focus on Ducky at the same time (except when she steals food off the counter; but that’s another story).

And just like that, I’m all the way up to contentment.

And moving on up ….

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After my post, Amplify, Amplify, Amplify,  Mel commented, “Wow, what a difference a day can make.” She was referring to the fact that two days before, I had written about not liking any of the choices I felt like I was facing. My frustration clearly came through at that point, and two days later, my improved mindset was equally clear.

Fifteen years ago, I took medication for severe depression (bipolar). I was in treatment for about five years from 1992 to 1997. I was told then that feeling bad was chemical. It was something I couldn’t control. I had to take a pill to get past it.

In 1997, I decided that the medication (I was on 12 different ones over those five years) was doing me far more harm than good. My path of least resistance (though I didn’t call it that then) was to stop taking the meds and find natural ways to improve my mood. I embarked on years of experimenting with foods and natural supplements and meditation and visualization, all of which were far more helpful than all the psychotropic drugs the doctors had prescribed.

It wasn’t until I began studying Abraham-Hicks, though, that I was able to put the notion of being “bipolar” or a “depression sufferer” behind me. It was then that I discovered I had the power to shift my mood from bad to good in a matter of seconds, just by choosing different thoughts.

I began to see that by thinking of myself as someone prone to depression I had been attracting thoughts that matched up with depression. I also began to see that my energy level was directly correlated to what I was thinking. When I was thinking about lack, I felt despair and no energy (i.e., I was “depressed”). When I was excited about something I wanted or appreciating something I had, I felt energized.

In the last few years, I’ve had a lot of times that other people would label “depression.” But I no longer call my low energy times depression. I know that when I’m indulging in a funk, it’s happening because I’m being lazy about the way I’m thinking.

“What about the brain chemistry?” someone once asked me when I told her that she controls her moods.

I know our bodies generate different chemicals when we’re down than when we’re up, but those chemical changes aren’t out of our control. Our vibrations and thoughts are the catalysts for whatever chemicals roam through our bodies. Years ago, I read an example of this in a book (can’t remember which one) by Deepak Chopra. He said two people can look at a roller coaster, and one person’s body will generate an “upper” chemical. This person loves roller coasters. The other person’s body will generate a “downer” chemical. This person is terrified of roller coasters. These chemicals are real—they’ve been measured scientifically. But they were generated by a thought (either “roller coasters are fun” or “roller coasters are dangerous”).

Since yesterday, I’ve been totally calm, serene even, about my finances.

Nothing in my experience has changed, but where I’m putting my attention HAS changed. I have changed. And I did it in an instant.

That’s the power of a moment.

One thought, which attracts another thought and another and another. I’m drawing more and more feel good thoughts to me with each moment.

It’s in my control. And it’s in yours.

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The lecture was supposed to be about beachcombing, which is one of my passions.

Tim and I joined our friends, Kathy and Lyn, for a talk given by Alan, a man who knows all about the critters and flotsam and jetsam that land on our beaches. I settled in, all ready to hear about glass floats and shells.

Alan starts talking about a novel, The Highest Tide, by Jim Lynch. One of the characters in the book, he said, was based on him. He went on to say that the book, Lynch’s first novel, sold over a million copies and is now being turned into a movie.

I started feeling very, very pissy.

I’m pretty attuned to my emotional guidance system.

(The emotional guidance system, if you don’t know the term, is what Abraham-Hicks calls your emotions. Your emotions are the way you know whether you are in alignment with your nonphysical self, your inner self, or what some call your higher self.  When you feel good, you’re aligned. When you don’t, you aren’t.)

I know when I’m feeling good, and I’m immediately aware of when I start feeling bad. I’m also getting very good at finding the thought that made me feel bad.

So when I started feeling pissy at the lecture, I immediately knew what I was thinking: Why haven’t I had success like that with my books? I am so ANGRY that that kind of success is possible and it hasn’t found me yet. I don’t even have an agent anymore. My first book should have done better. Etc, etc.

What I was feeling was the relative position of where I was compared with where my nonphysical self is.

My nonphysical self is aligned with me being a hugely successful author. My nonphysical self has become the vibrational equivalent of a bestselling author with a million sales.

I was feeling pissy because my thoughts were light years (in terms of vibration) from what my nonphysical self knew to be true and had become.

When I feel pissy about my writing, it feels really, really, really, really (are you getting this?) BAD.

Why?

Because I really, really, really, really want to be a bestselling author with over a million books sold. I’ve wanted it for a very long time.

This means that my energy has been flowing in that direction for a long time. That flow is powerful and fast.

When I have thoughts that are contrary to what I want, the contrast between what I want and what I think I can have is what makes me feel so miserable.

It helps me to be aware of this.

I didn’t clean up my thoughts last night (I was having too much fun feeling pissy—at least it wasn’t frustration and despair—it was anger, which is higher on the emotional scale).

But I cleaned them up today. Tim helped me with that.

A couple days ago, I got my weekly update on YA placements to editors. It included the announcement of a $1,000,000 deal for a debut YA series. When I saw that, I got really, really pissy.

Do you see a pattern here?

Today, Tim pointed out that hearing about great success for debut books twice in a few days could be an indicator that my own coming success as a debut YA author (I’ve had an adult novel published but not YA).

I tried out that thought.

Yeah, that felt really good.

It is odd to hear about that kind of success (it’s rare) twice in a few days. Maybe this is the universe telling me I’m heading toward it.

Of course, I can head toward it if I think more thoughts that feel good.

So I’m moving from pissy to hopeful.

Hopeful isn’t the exuberant expectation I need to fully line up with the success I want. But it’s an improvement.

And I’m going to keep looking for better feeling thoughts about this.

What about you? Are you listening to your emotional guidance system?

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One more bit of wisdom from my friend, Melanie, the distance healer:

When she and I spoke the other day, she told me she thought much of our problems in manifesting what we want lay in our desire to make things unfold in a specific way.  In other words, we try and manhandle the details.

We want to orchestrate how things unfold down to the nitty-gritty minutia of it all.  Author Neville, who wrote The Neville Reader, a law of attraction primer that was way ahead of The Secret, said that our job is to decide what we want and then feel as if it has already happened.

It’s that simple.  We just need to live FROM what we want, not INTO what we want. We get hung up, he said, when we try and figure out how it’s all going to come together.

We are not responsible for the details.  That’s the Universe’s job.  All we have to do is hold a vision of what we want and stay in alignment with our inner being, our Nonphysical self, so we can vibrate on a match with our desire.

This is what I’ve failed to do for some time.  I’ve gotten caught up in the details.

I want to feel financial freedom, creative success, joy, and security.  Instead of just finding ways to feel those things now, I’ve been trying to figure out how to get them, and I’ve been glomming onto Tim’s vision of winning the lottery and agonizing over it.  Or I’ve been deciding the way to get money is with freelancing and then agonizing over it.

No more.

I am delighted by the money I currently have.  I am enjoying my days as they are.  And I want to expand on that and feel riches and joy.

It can come to me in whatever way is best for me.

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I’m still baffled by Tim’s lack of success in spite of what he says he feels.  He says he feels like a lottery winner and he has felt that way for months, but here he is with no win yet and seriously dwindling funds.  This has hung me up.

But then, what if he’s not feeling what he thinks he feels?

Yesterday, on our walk, Tim got annoyed with me for a moment.  I read his annoyance in two bits of body language (a skyward look and blowing out air).

Tim has been trying to tell me for months that he feels the exuberance of being a rich man, but what I see is a rather blasé guy who shuffles through the day with not a lot of energy.  Sure, he’s relaxed, but excited about being a lottery winner?  He sure doesn’t act like it.

He’s been trying to tell me that he can feel that way without showing it.  I keep telling him that’s not possible.  The only way we can hide our true feelings is if we’re trying.  Otherwise, our feelings show in our body language—in the way we look, move, etc.  Why, I asked him, would he hide feeling exuberant, especially when he knows I would love to see evidence of him feeling like a lottery winner.  He says he’s not hiding it, but then, it’s not showing.

So what can I conclude?  He doesn’t feel as much like a lottery winner as he says he does.

I find this encouraging.  If Tim’s alignment hasn’t been as good as he thought it was, this explains why he doesn’t have money yet.

Conclusion: my experiment just might work.

So I’m going for it … again.

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