For most of this year, I’ve been rudderless.  With no way of steering, I’ve manually paddled in one direction then another … my gaze on the horizon, seeking work that feels right and could produce a steady income.

All my paddling, though earnest, has been desultory.  That’s not surprising.  When you don’t have a destination, you don’t have much incentive to put your back into it.

Who can be productive like this?  Not me.

Here’s how I went from drifting aimlessly to gleefully churning through inspired actions that are lighting me up like pulsing neon and how you can do the same

1.  Let Go

After all that aimless effort, finally, a couple months ago, I let go of the oars and let my boat go where it would.

In real life, the way this looked was a lot of time reading, walking Ducky, visiting with my parents, doing things around the house, writing blog posts when the mood struck, messing around on Ducky’s Facebook page, taking naps, doing more reading.  Once in awhile, the gotta-do-something part of my brain would kick in, and I’d push at this project or that, always with no enjoyable results.

For example, in the beginning of August, I got the idea to write an e-book on novel writing that I could give away to prospective buyers of Novel Writing Made Easy to provide them with a sense of what kind of information I have in the system I sell.  I thought it was a cool idea, and I started the e-book.  It took me 3 weeks to write it.  This wasn’t because I was working on it for that long.  In actual time, I think it might have taken two days.  But I couldn’t seem to stick with it.  I kept getting distracted.  I finally made myself do it, and I got it on the site, and … what a surprise … it’s had no impact on sales.

I went back to reading etc. This time I truly let go.  When fear would rise up and yell at me:  “Gotta make money.  Gotta make money,” I’d say, “That’s none of my business,” and “I choose to be at peace.”  My energy would shift, and I’d relax again.

One of the etc.s was keeping up with my e-mail inbox, and over the next couple weeks, I received links to internet marketing training videos that discussed affiliate marketing and video blogging.  Although intrigued, my initial reaction was a bristling resistance.  I’ve had bad experiences with internet marketing in the past, and I think much of it is scammy and smarmy and I want no part of it. But I reminded myself that the past is in the past; I watched the videos with an open mind.

2. Give Ideas Time To Settle In

The videos planted a seed of an idea in my head. For two weeks, I did nothing but continue to read etc. In the back of my mind, though, the idea began to sprout.

Finally, on August 30, I told Tim about my idea.  “I can’t guarantee it will produce an income,” I told him.  “And I have some concerns about being so visible on the videos with my weight the way it is.”

“You’re beautiful,” he said.  (Do you see why I LOVE my husband?)

3. Check The Resistance Level

Tim then said, “Does it sound like fun to you?” (He’s loving AND wise!)

“Yes, it does,” I said.  “It combines all my passions.”

“You want to do this more than write another book?” he asked.

“I have some resistance to writing a book,” I said.  “I can feel it.  But this idea feels pretty resistance free.”

When you feel edgy about an idea, when you’re entertaining the reasons why it might fail, you have resistance.  Resistance grinds the wheels of productivity to a halt (as it did with that novel writing e-book I mentioned).

4. GO Without Hesitation

Two days later, I did go for it.  I generated a plan, scribbled down a bunch of ideas and came up with name for my new project (that was easy—it just popped into my head).    And just like that, Up From Splat started going from idea to reality.

Between September 1 and September 11, I did this:

• Registered a domain name for a new site
• Chose a theme and tweaked the code until I got it the way I wanted it
• Wrote all page content for the site and 14 blog posts
• Wrote content for six videos and 16 audios and recorded them
• Wrote and did graphics for a 23 page e-book
• Wrote and did graphics a 35-page e-book
• Set up an autoresponder sign up sequence and form
• Set up a youtube channel
• Set up a new Facebook Up From Splat Group

And this is just what I did for my new project.  I also

• Started a new eating plan (yes, I know I don’t need to eat specific things for my body to be smaller, but it feels right) and banished 14 pounds—woo hoo
• Began meditating again (I used to do it regularly and got out of the habit)
• Set up several other self-care systems that used to work for me and that I’d let fall by the wayside

5. Don’t Stick Your Nose In The Universe’s Business

About six days into my rapids-like action, I ran into a boulder.  I watched my new videos and had a moment of self doubt.  “What if”s sprang up like weeds:  what if people hate it, what if it’s a dumb idea after all, what if it fails.  Blah, blah, blah.

I stopped what I was doing.  I used the chi machine and meditated and did deep breathing, and I told myself repeatedly, “That’s none of my business.”  It’s not up to me to handle how it’s received or what happens now.  All I need to do is stay excited about my idea and remain in the identity of a woman who’s already built a successful business.

Ahhh.

I went back to my action fully charged up and raring to go.

Productivity Isn’t Willful

And that’s how you get things done, quadruple what it seems like it’s possible to do.

We tend to think of productivity as a willful thing, something that comes with discipline and schedules and responsibility.  We usually push our way into productivity and then feel all virtuous about it.

True productivity has nothing to do with effort.  It comes from putting yourself in a boat that needs no rudder because it knows exactly where to go—toward alignment with your highest self.

When you stop working so hard to look for a direction and you let that direction simply reveal itself to you, you remove the impediment that was keeping your boat from finding its way.  And that’s when you get productive because that’s when the energy is flowing.  That’s when you have the power of you (your physical self) and YOU (your nonphysical, higher energy self who knows who you really are) acting in sync. When that happens—WOWZA!

I invite you to join me at Up From Splat.  It’s not a site devoted to living in law of attraction awareness as this one is.  The site starts from a place of contrast, from the yuck of what is, and sets a course toward the wonder of what can grow from that contrast  It’s my way of making something awesome out of past events that could be considered lousy.

Although the site isn’t law of attraction-oriented, of course it’s written through that awareness because that’s my perspective.  But I do share more action ideas on the site than I do here.

If you like the site, please share it with whoever you think might find it useful.  And as always, I welcome your comments and thoughts!

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Last week, I ran into Susie, a fellow regular beachcomber, on one of my walks with my dog, Ducky.

“I haven’t found an agate in weeks and weeks,” Susie said to me.  “Have you?”

“No,” I said.

“Where have all the agates gone?” she asked.

I said I didn’t know.

We chatted a bit more and went our separate ways.  Not five minutes later, having forgotten all about agates because I was thinking about traveling in a luxury coach with Tim and Ducky and her two Springer sisters, I found an agate.  And I found another five minutes after that.

Two agates … and two important things to remember about the law of attraction.

Just Because You Haven’t Seen It Yet Doesn’t Mean It Isn’t About To Happen

One day artist and mom, Cindy Jett, got an inspired idea to write a children’s story about a caterpillar that didn’t want to be a butterfly.  With her daughter nearby, Cindy curled up to write a manuscript, and when she finished, she decided to send it off to see if she could get it published.  Here’s what happened, in her words:

“In the ensuing months, I got a steady flow of rejection letters. At around six months, the letters quit coming and, at about eight months, I forgot about my story altogether. Then, a year later, I received a phone call while vacationing in Mexico. It was from New Horizon Press, and the woman on the line was telling me that she wanted to publish my story. You can imagine my total shock, surprise and delight!”

TWENTY months passed between the time Cindy sent out her manuscript and the time she sold it.  After half that many months, most writers (ahem, sadly myself, at times, included) would throw up their hands in despair and say, “I’m never going to sell it.”  Maybe Cindy did that.  Maybe she didn’t.  But what she did was forget about it.  And that’s when it happened.

You might be literally seconds from seeing the experience sprout you’re expecting, the agate you want to find.  The extended lack of it has nothing to do with its coming appearance.  The only thing that can prevent that appearance is a focus on the lack of it.

Forgetting Is Creating

When I talked to Susie about not finding agates, I had no negative emotion about the lack of agates.  I wasn’t at all upset about the lack of them.  Who needs agates when you have Ducky carrying sticks.

I mean, is she the picture of joy … and cuteness … or what?  Then there’s the ocean and the sky and the driftwood ….  I like finding agates but I don’t need them to feel grand.

Like Cindy, who moved on from her manuscript and was focusing on something fun, like a vacation to Mexico, when her manuscript sale showed up, I wasn’t “trying to create” an agate when I found one.  I was just feeling good.

One of the misconceptions I held for a long time, and one that’s still being perpetuated by many law of attraction teachers, is that you have to hold the object of desire in your focus at all times in order for it to appear.  You have to focus on it, visualize it.

Not true.

The moment you have a desire, the universe knows of it.  Your desire is complete, fully created in the energetic world in that instant.  It’s there for you.

Now all you have to do is line up with it.

You do that by being the person who already has that desire.  And that person, of course, feels good.  That person is joyful, at peace, and appreciative.  That person feels awesome.

So that’s how you need to feel to get in the vibrational vicinity of your desire.  That’s it.  No obsessive focus.  No staring at pictures or setting a clock to visualize daily.

If pictures and visualizing makes you feel like that person who already has the desire, then for sure look at pictures and visualize.  But making yourself focus on a desire, which I did for a very long time (with predictable poor results) doesn’t work.  It doesn’t work because in the effort of forcing, you’re actually activating the lack of what you want instead of the appearance of what you want.  Because, think about it, would you be forcing yourself to focus on something you already have?

Finding agates and other treasures like sold manuscripts isn’t supposed to be, in fact, it can’t be work.  It’s fun.

So the way to have the life you want is to simply look for fun … anywhere you can find it.

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My mother keeps many of her memories in a cedar chest at the end of her bed.  The trunk holds awards and clippings—I think she saved every newspaper column I ever wrote, and she has at least five copies of the first whole newspaper in which my first column appears.  The chest holds locks of hair and photographs and playbills.  And it holds some of my early artistic and literary efforts.

There’s the paper plate covered in uncooked pasta and sprayed with gold that I made in third grade.  There’s the misshapen sickly blue mug that I made in fifth grade.  There’s the stilted poetry I wrote throughout grade school, and the 20 page, 10 chapter “novel” I wrote when I was twelve (I think it started with something like “it was a dark and stormy night.”)

My mother treasures every one of these creations.  Why?  Because her only child made them.

Each of us is still the child we were when we were young enough to be making funky art projects.  Each of us is worthy of the kind of love that saves those projects.  Each of us deserves to have our creations treasured and celebrated.

If we act like that child and know our worthiness and we treasure and celebrate our creations, we can release a whole lot of resistance fast and easily.

How?

Resistance comes from disliking the way things are, pushing against what we have in our lives now.

How did we get things the way they are now?  By creating them.

Right now, I’m surrounded by the “treasures” my thoughts have created:  there’s the blob of bankruptcy, here’s the quilt of fat, there are the odd shapes of unwanted jobs and miscommunications and broken household objects and arguments and … enough of that.  You get the idea.  I created everything in my life.  I MADE it.  And I am worthy child of the universe.  So why would I sneer at and criticize my creations?  Why would I hate them so?  Why would I treat myself like that when I would never dream of treating another this way?

Every time I say I hate the way things are, I am doing the same thing my mother would be doing if she destroyed my early projects and threw them away.  I am dishonoring me.

That dishonor is resistance.  Abraham-Hicks refers to it as misalignment with the eternal, nonphysical part of ourselves.  When we hate what we have created, we hate ourselves.

Resistance falls away when you look at every single thing in your life, every unwanted situation, as some wondrous creation you made.  See that lack of money as a crooked birdhouse made with fumbling fingers.  See that lousy relationship as a torn sheet of paper covered with finger paint.

Look at your world and marvel at what you’ve created.  Exult in your power.  You have brought everything around you into being.

Okay, so maybe what you’ve made isn’t something they’d hang in the Louvre.  Maybe no one would buy it.  Maybe you don’t want to buy it.  But you created it.  And you’re worthy.  So celebrate what you made.

When you begin to treasure every single thing in your life, misshapen or not, believe me—resistance will crumble.  Ease will arrive.  Life will feel good.

Related Posts:

Too Much Vision, Not Enough Feeling

Embracing Toddlerhood

How To Always Get What You Want

——

Photo by Corsi Photo on Flickr.

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When a whole lot of yucky things are going on in your life and you’ve sunk to the bottom of the emotional scale and you know you’re out of alignment with what you want, what can you do to feel better right this minute?

Abraham-Hicks teaches many processes that can help improve your emotional set point and thus your alignment, but sometimes things can get so overwhelming that it’s tough to summon up the oomph to do any of the processes.  Sometimes, visualizing and journaling and whatever else is just too much trouble.  And remember, if it doesn’t feel good, it’s not helping.

So what can you do when you feel this bad?

You can reach for thoughts that help you feel a little better than what you feel now, thereby climbing the emotional scale, going from fear to anger to blame to doubt, for instance.  But sometimes that can seem too complicated too.

Me?  I like the easy way.

In the last few weeks, my “what is” circumstances have included some pretty lousy events.  If I told you the details of those events, you would understand if I also told you I was feeling lousy.

But not only am I not going to tell you the details, I also don’t feel lousy.

I admit I did wallow a bit last week, but I feel good now.

Why?

This quote from Mike Dooley’s Notes From The Universe explains my shift:

“Isn’t it rather mind-numbing that for everyone, always and forever, they have 10,000 more things to be thrilled about, than not?”

Think about that.  Imagine the power of going through your day thinking about the 10,000 things that are right instead of the two or three or even 100 that are wrong.  Imagine focusing on the glory of a all the clovers in the field instead of worrying about one snake in the grass.

When I saw this quote, I remembered Abraham-Hicks’ statement that appreciation is one of the most powerful positive vibrational frequencies that there is.  Doesn’t it stand to reason that if you go around looking for the 10,000 things that are right, the law of attraction will bring you more and more things that are right?

Instead of trying to find beliefs and feelings that seemed out of my reach, trying to take on an identity of what I want to be, one that just doesn’t seem to fit me right now, I decided to simplify.  I began to look for as many things as I could find that are right in my world.

You know the game “I Spy?” Kids love it.  “I spy with my little blue eye something red,” one player says, and the other players try to guess what it is.

I’ve been playing a new version of the game:  “I spy something right.”

Something “right” is something that feels good, something to appreciate.

And guess what?  It only took spying a couple dozen “right” things for me to start feeling better.

I thought it would be fun if we could play this game together.  What do you think about coming together to gather 10,000 (or more) “right” things here in this post?

Can you imagine the woo hoo vibrational frequency we can create by combining our focus and pointing it at as many good things as we can think of?

I’ll get us started.

I Spy With My Little Blue Eye Something RIGHT

I spy:

1.    My dog, Ducky’s enthusiasm

2.    My husband, Tim’s love for me

3.    Ocean breezes

4.    A solid roof over my head

5.    A comfortable sofa

6.    Nectarines ripening on my kitchen counter

7.    The kitchen counter

8.    Having a nice deep sink with a garbage disposal

9.    My laptop

10. WordPress, which makes it easy to blog

11. The coming of fall

12. The 1957 wheat penny Tim found, which so delighted him

13. The training collar my parents bought for Ducky

14. My parents willingness to help us out as much as they can

15. The gift certificate that my friend gave us that allowed Tim and I to go out to eat on his birthday

16. The fact that I can breathe

17. The fact that I can smell (as in sniff things not as in having body odor)

18. The fact hear

19. The fact that I can taste things like pizza and red wine and avocadoes

20. Pizza, wine and avocados

21. The fact that I can feel textures like Ducky’s soft fur

22. Ducky’s soft fur

23. The quiet in my neighborhood

24. The beach I get to let Ducky run around on

25. The sound of the surf

26. The sound of the breeze rustling trees in my backyard

27. The trees in my backyard

28. Every dollar and cent I have in the bank

29. Every dollar and cent that is on its way to me

30. My ability to write

31. My ability to type

32. Tim’s usual great mood

33. A working alarm clock (the digital kind)

34. A fun alarm clock (the Ducky kind)

35. Flannel sheets

36. Having a comfy bed to sleep in

37. Fans that cool the room

38. Living in a place where fans are rarely needed

39. The infinite variations of the color green in my backyard

40. Indoor toilets

41. Running water

42. Hot water

43. Having a water softener that keeps the water running smoothly through our pipes

44. Having a working DVD/VCR and TV

45. Remote controls

46. Having two cars that run just fine

47. Having one car so old that I don’t care if it’s filled with sand and dog hair

48. Fresh water

49. The ability to drink and eat

50. Being able to sleep

51. Being able to dream

52. Tim’s C-pap machine, which has done away with the need for me to poke him several times during the night

53. Dog beds because dogs look so cute sleeping in them

54. Dogs

55. Cats

56. Deer

57. Raccoons

58. Birds

59. Eagles

60. Horses

61. Cows

62. Soy products so I don’t have to eat cows

63. Tim’s pure joy when eating part of a cow and the fact that we can agree to be different

64. Elephants

65. The brass elephant in my living room

66. The purple flying pig in my bathroom

67. Toothbrushes and toothpaste because without them, my teeth wouldn’t be happy and dentists would be way too rich

68. E-mail

69. Twitter

70. Facebook

71. Being on Facebook as Ducky and how fun it is to interact with other over the top pet owners

72. A working brain

73. The ability to remember good things

74. Music

75. Dancing

76. Microsoft word, which is making numbering this list very easy

77. My ability to cook

78. Getting our oven fixed for $500 less than was originally quoted

79. A working stove and oven

80. The propane that runs our stove, oven, and our gas woodstove

81. A working washer and dryer in my house

82. The fact that Tim does laundry AND irons his own shirts

83. A working iron and ironing board

84. Tim’s bicycle, which he enjoys riding to work

85. The fact that Tim switched to a smaller belt today

86. The fact 99 percent of my hair is still brunette

87.  The pinto bean salad I made yesterday

88. Tim’s appreciation of the pinto bean salad

89. Screens on my windows

90. Windows

91. Not seeing anything except trees on my own property when I look out my windows

92. Living in a small town

93. Libraries

94. New friends I’ve made through this blog

95. Castles

96. Taking photos with a digital camera

97. My ability to walk

98. Having fingernails that grow fast

99. Spending the day working at home with  my dog at my side

100.   Drawers and closets to keep things in

101.   Doors to cover the drawers and closets so I don’t need to keep what’s inside perfectly neat

102.   My massage shower head

103.   Tim’s foot rubs

104.   Lotion

105.   The smell of fresh rain

106.   The way rain sounds on the roof

107.   The way rain feels on my skin

108.   Sunshine

109.   Clouds

110.   Storms

111.   Sunrise

112.   Sunset

113.   The moon

114.   Roads in my town

115.   Freeways

116.   Traffic signals and signs

117.   The fact that 99 percent of drivers do what they’re supposed to do

118.   My ability to drive

119.   My glasses

120.   Being able to read quickly

121.   Being able to write quickly

122.   Playing with Ducky

123.   Laughing

124.   Watching movies with Tim

125.   Popcorn

126.   The fact that I’ve had 3 books published

127.   All the columns and articles I’ve written that can be repurposed into other things

128.   My ability to teach writing

129.   Watching Ducky swim

130.   Teaching Ducky tricks

131.   Watching Ducky perform her tricks

132.   That fact that Ducky comes when she’s called 95 percent of the time

133.   My back massage cushion that does shiatsu while I work

134.   Socks

135.   Memory foam

136.   Pillows

137.   Memories of my dog, Muggins

138.   Clocks

139.   The fact that my thoughts create my reality

140.   The buffet and hutch that Tim made

141.   Tim’s love of woodworking

142.   Funny jokes

143.   Ducky’s freckles

144.   The feel of a good hug

145.   Playing Scrabble with Tim

146.   The solid floor in my home

147.   Locks on my doors

148.   Living in a town where I don’t need locks on my doors even if I use them out of habit

149.   Tables

150.   Chairs

151.   The fact that all my parts work in such a way that I can easily use tables and chairs

152.   How dark our bedroom is at night

153.   Door knobs that make opening doors easy

154.   My jetted tub

155.   The way Ducky can have fun with an empty water bottle

156.   Seeing Ducky’s toys lying around because it reminds me of her joy

157.   Eating lunch out on the deck

158.   The 90 percent of my body that’s perfectly comfortable

159.   Teeth to chew things with

160.   Earrings

161.   The convenience of pierced ears

162.   The fact that there is such a wide variety of color in the world

163.   The fact that my body can digest food and eliminate what my body doesn’t need

164.   The fun of finding agates and shells on the beach

165.   Light

166.   The ease of light switches

167.   Electricity

168.   Batteries

169.   Rechargeable batteries

170.   Phones

171.   Cell phones

172.   Answering machines

173.   Tim’s ability to build websites

174.   Tim’s willingness to do whatever job he needs to do to earn money

175.   Tim’s and my ability to learn new things

176.   The fact that I have gone after my dream instead of “playing it safe”

177.   Thermometers

178.   The way inside of my house looks

179.   My chi machine

180.   Vitamins and minerals

181.   Reading novels to relax

182.   All the pictures I have of Muggins

183.   The fun of doing The Joyful Springer

184.   Meeting dog people through The Joyful Springer

185.   Wind chimes

186.   Singing

187.   Soap

188.   Shampoo

189.   Make-up and the fact that I don’t have to wear it if I don’t want to

190.   The fact that mosquitoes are easy to kill

191.   The way spices make food taste

192.   Having a refrigerator

193.   The fact that no matter how much weight I’ve gained, I still have slender wrists

194.   Having cute ears that don’t stick out

195.   Tim’s patience

196.   The anipals on Twitter

197.   The fact that my 25 year old stereo still works great

198.   Ducky’s dog door

199.   Shelves

200.   Having lots of books

So there’s a begnning.

When you’re looking for things that are right, your mind doesn’t have room to linger over what’s wrong.  It’s amazing how fast you go from feeling bad to feeling good when you do this.

I invite you to play with me.  Please share a list of “right” things in your world.  If you feel like counting them up and putting a total at the end, all the better so we can keep a running total of what we’ve come up with.

Let’s pour on the appreciation here.  Let’s feel great!

Related posts:

I Love ….

Looking For Mr. Gorilla

I’ll Never Do Dishes Again

———–

Photo by Pink Sherbet Photography on Flickr.

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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?

Their Experience Is Not Your Experience

Just as I’m not usually looking where Tim is looking, I am not interpreting the world around me the way he is or the way anyone else is for that matter.

So why would I act like I AM interpreting the world the same way as everyone else?  Why would I act like what is there to be seen is a FACT that I must deal with?

Most of us base our actions and decisions on a “reality” that others have created. We react to a world that we think is REAL when in fact it is just a collection of interpretations generated by millions of different vibrational frequencies, i.e. people focusing their thoughts.

Here’s the way Abraham-Hicks explains it:

“In this tangible, physical world, where you can see and smell and hear and taste and touch, your physical senses are literally your interpreters of vibrations. And so, the world you perceive is about your sensors that are interpreting it from vibration to perception.

”When you look at your television, a similar thing is taking place: A mechanism has projected and translated, and now you are using other physical human sensors to further translate. You don’t look at your television and assume that somehow those people are really in that little box. You know that the screen, or the process, is giving you an interpreted version of omething. And everything in your world is that.

“It’s hard for you to get a sense of that, because you are surrounded with so many other interpreters who are born with similar sensors or senses to yours.

“And so, when we say to you, what you see with your eyes is an interpretation of vibration, what you feel with your fingertips, what you hear with your ears, what you smell with your nose, all that you are experiencing is vibrational interpretation, you say (because so many of you are having a similar experience) ‘Well, this interpretation of vibration is reality.’ And we say, the reason you are calling it reality is because so many others are agreeing with you, in general terms, about the reality you are perceiving. But, in truth, you are all interpreting uniquely from your perspective.

“We approach your physical experience in a rather unusual way because once you understand that you are vibrational interpreters, then you can deliberately take it further. Then you can go beyond your physical senses, which are interpreting vibration by utilizing your emotional basis, which is a further interpretation of more defined, intricate interpreting. Your emotions tell you more subtle vibrations.”

In other words, since nothing we’re experiencing with our physical senses is as set as we think it is (and we think it’s set because everyone else is acting as if it is), we can choose to see our world with no reference to what others would call reality.  We can totally ignore what others are perceiving.

AND we can ignore what our physical selves are experiencing.

We do not have to put our focus on what our physical senses are telling us.  Our physical senses may be staring right at a Clint Black banner, but our vibrational focus, translated to us through our emotions, can be happily looking out another window at a vista that is more interesting or pleasing to us, a vista that is more in line with what we would like to create in our world.

I have spent far too much time in the last few years letting my physical self direct my gaze toward a reality created by my past alignment and by others’ alignment.  When I had my “Clint Black Banner Moment,” I understood with utter clarity that I can and in fact MUST not only choose where I want to put my attention but also stick with my choice no matter what others want to point out to me.

We don’t live in a simple world where we all perceive the same things.  We live in a vibrational world that we can each interpret differently.  Call it an alternate reality or a vision or a want—it’s really simply truth.  Each of us can experience the truth of what our desires have created by using our emotions to direct us toward the true reality—the one in which our nonphysical already resides.

I’m grateful today for Tim’s out of context question.  It showed me how silly it is to let a physical perception dictate our vibrational reality.

And so, is Clint Black any good?

I don’t really care.

All I care about is that reality is good … when we decide that it is.

Related Posts:

Too Much Thought

It’s Not All The Same To Me

The Potato Chips Saga

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Photo by Cloudzilla on Flickr.

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At the end of May, thanks to some serious misalignment, the law of attraction brought to us an uprooted, leaning tree.  The “facts” are that a freak wind storm broke off the top of one tree, and that treetop fell into a second, dead tree, knocking it partially over.  Surrounding trees caught the dead tree and kept it from going all the way over, but its position was precarious.

The day after the wind storm, we got an estimate for removing the tree.  The cost would be $850 … which might as well have been $850,000.  We didn’t have the money, and we still don’t.

If you’ve been following this blog for awhile, you know that a couple months ago, my “what is” situation was a turmoil.  I’d just gotten sued over debt. I had no idea how I was going to pay my bills. We were in danger of losing our house. Blah, blah, blah.  The bottom line is that my mind was full of “dead wood thoughts.”

What are dead wood thoughts? They’re “how” thoughts.

How Thoughts Block Happy Thoughts

You know you’ve thought yourself into a tangle of dead wood when you’re continually mulling over how you’re going to make something happen or how you’re going to get something.  Back in May, my brain was stuffed with how thoughts—how am I going to handle this law suit, how will I pay for the tree, how will we pay our bills, etc.

As long as those how thoughts were in my head, I couldn’t get a clear stream of happy thoughts going.  Oh, I’d manage one or two or three, but I couldn’t get a flow of good feelings going.

Finally, though, I saw what I was doing, and I forgot about the how.  I stopped trying to figure things out.  In fact, for awhile, I stopped thinking as much as possible.  I didn’t try to visualize what I wanted or talk about what I wanted.  All I did was watch my dog, Ducky, as much as possible, and I read and I napped and I did whatever I felt moved to do.

To use Abraham-Hicks language, I let go of the oars.  I just let my boat turn with the flow of the stream and I enjoyed the ride.  I got in the Vortex.

And the tree?  It kept leaning.

Falling Into Place

So over the last month, my vision of the life I desire has gotten stronger and stronger.  Law of attraction has brought to me an amazing amount of information about houses, cars, and other goodies that I want.  I keep seeing the Toyota 4 x 4 extra cab, long bed truck I want.  I keep stumbling over things that help me clarify my desires about the trips Tim and I want to take.

And as for the money?  Have I thought about that?  As little as possible.

The “what is” is that we’ve filed for bankruptcy and because of that, the creditor calls have stopped.  The amount of money we need each month is 2/3 of what it was 2 months ago.  Tim is working in 2 jobs, which he got very quickly after his temporary job with the Census ended.  Each week brings some new development that gets us closer to the financial stability we desire.

I’ve cleared so much of the dead wood in my thoughts that I’m experiencing more calm than I have in years.  I can’t say that I’m in exhilarated expectation yet, but I’m okay with calm for the moment.

Calm is working rather well for me in fact.

Last week, my mother told me she thought we should take down the tree before the fall storms come and so she and my step-dad would lend us the money to have it done.  Well, that sounded good to me.  And from my place of calm, I thought getting another quote wouldn’t be a bad idea.

Tim made one phone call that led to a guy that led to another guy who came out today.  This new guy looked at the tree and said, “Interesting.  Quite a tight spot.”  This is what all the other guys had said about why it would cost so much to remove.

I remained calm, just waiting for him to give me an estimate.  I had $500 or better in my head.  But when he said, “We can do it for $200,” I was tempted to hug him.  When he said, “We’ll get started right now,” I might have levitated a bit.

I called my mom and asked if she could get me $200 cash within a half hour.  Thrilled to be lending us $200 instead of $850, she said she’d go to the bank.  Five minutes later, she called and said that my dad had been “hiding” money, and he had $200 in a drawer and they were bringing it down. Five minutes after that, I’m not kidding, the tree was down and all the wood was stacked in a depression hidden behind brush in our yard so you can’t see it.  It looks like the tree was never there. I’ve never seen a tree fallen and cut up so fast in my life.

See how slick that works? Remove dead wood thoughts and get physical dead wood down easily.

The law of attraction can bring easy solutions to every situation.  In fact, it can bring easy situations that never require solutions because there are no problems to solve. But the law of attraction can’t bring this sort of fall-into-place ease if we’re doing the mental equivalent of flailing our arms about.  The harder we try to figure out how to do something, the farther we get from alignment with that something.

It is not our job to figure out how.  That’s up to the universe.

It’s our job to desire and allow. When you let go of figuring it out, you relax into a place of calm, a place of ease … a place where dead trees disappear in the blink of an eye.

Related Posts:

The Smiley Face vs. The Rodeo Clown

Two Steps To Great Decisions

About Face

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Photo by Paul Schultz on Flickr.

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You know the old saying … if you don’t have anything good to say, say nothing at all.

I’ve lived by that adage since my last post.

All I have to say now is that I’ll be delighted when my outer reality lines up with my inner one.

Tim and I have found acreage on the Southern Oregon coast that we know has our name on it.  I can see us sitting on the deck of a house perched on the side of a hill looking out at the Pacific Ocean.  We’ve spent many hours the last couple weeks talking about what we’ll do with that property and what our life will be like there.

From time to time, I’m tempted to write about all the yuck that has gone in the last couple weeks; but I’ve zipped my lips, and I refuse to say a word about it.

A couple weeks ago, a reader shared that she can’t manifest things now because she once found herself in such a place of pure joy and knowing about something she wanted that she knew it was hers and yet it never came.  She said that now when she tries to focus in joy on feeling like she has what she wants, she’s reminded of this past failure and others like it.

I understand what she’s saying.  This is the place I’ve been in for a long time.  I’ve had that extended period of pure joyful knowing, that sensation of yes, I have it, so it’s mine. And then I’ve watched the exact opposite come into my life.

And it’s happening to me now.

What to do about it?

I think the answer is this simple:  say nothing and do nothing.  Stay in the place of knowing and return to it if it slips away.  Look forward instead of behind.

Am I making it too simple?  I’d love to get your feedback on this because I have no grand results to “prove” that I’m on the right track.

But I’m staying on the track anyway.  While most of the country is baking in unusual heat, we’ve been enjoying cool ocean breezes and refreshing misty fog. I’m basking in how much I appreciate that.  And while I bask, I’m going to let you write the blog.   What do you have to say about the reader’s comment?

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Photo by notsogoodphotography and dawgbite77 on Flickr.

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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.

While in this shock, I have also rocketed up and down the emotional scale.  I’ve been in abject despair, barely contained rage, relentless disappointment, edgy annoyance, and extreme frustration.  I’ve also been in hope and optimism, and yes, I’ve even been in appreciation and love and joy.

I didn’t realize until I gave into the bankruptcy that shock had been the foundation of all my emotion for these many months.  I didn’t realize that I’d yet to fully accept my situation.

The Broken Table

The word bankruptcy can be traced back to the days when business was done on benches or tables in the street.  When a businessman couldn’t pay his debts, his trading table or bench was destroyed—this was the indicator that he was out of business.   The Latin word for table is “bancus.”  And “ruptus” means broken.  Thus “bankruptcy.”

The symbolism seems appropriate to me.  I certainly feel like my table (my sense of stability and security) has been broken.

And until this last week, I have resisted the idea of admitting that it was so broken that I couldn’t fix it without going through a legal process I’d always viewed with an extremely negative perspective.  Did you notice the important word in that sentence?

Resistance.

We all know that when you have resistance, you can’t find alignment with source energy and thus you can’t bring in by law of attraction what you desire to have in your life. And so, all of my shock and refusal to accept that I am where I am has kept me stuck where I am.

Happy Hillbillies

The morning before Tim and I left to go see the attorney, Tim set his metal-framed glasses on the kitchen counter, and when he picked them up again, he was shocked (do you see a theme here?) to find he held only half his glasses.  They’d split right down the middle of the nose piece.

He was baffled.  He hadn’t mistreated the glasses in any way.  They just inexplicably broke.

And oddly, that’s when the shock finally left me.

After Tim and I taped the glasses together and he put them on, I burst out laughing. This was all so ridiculous.

“You really ought to just take off your belt,” I said, “and tie your pants up with a rope, and we can call ourselves hillbillies.  We have all the old stuff and old cars …” (When you prepare for bankruptcy, you do an inventory of everything you have, and I faced the fact that most of what we have is so old it has no value to anyone but us.) “… and now you have taped glasses frames.  Let’s just embrace our situation.”

Tim didn’t see the humor.

I was still laughing.  “Heck, the TV ‘Hillbillies” struck oil,” I said.

I kept giggling.  Maybe I was having a breakdown.

And if I was, it was a good one.  It was a breakdown of resistance.  It was acceptance of what is.

Not that I said acceptance of what is.  I’m not saying focus on what is.

You see, I’ve been doing my best NOT to focus on what is.  But what I’ve discovered is you can’t remove your focus from what is until you accept it.  If you’re pushing against it, you’re focusing on it. You have to be able to say, “It is what it is, and that’s okay.”

What do you do with a broken table?

Well, you can throw it away.  Or you can you use the wood for something new.

Transformations In Wood

A couple weeks ago, my friend, Nancy, sent me an e-mail about extraordinary wood carvings that were created from the tree skeletons left in Galveston after Hurricane Ike’s fury roared through.  About 40,000 gorgeous old trees died.  But the area residents managed to turn this devastating loss into something positive.  They cut down the trees and left the stumps, which wood carvers turned into stunning sculptures of dogs and dolphins and toads and mermaids and angels and a whole lot more.

When I saw the pictures of some of these sculptures, I was struck by the awesome creativity and beauty that can grow from the ugliness of loss.  I knew I needed to apply the lesson to my own situation, but I wasn’t able to do that until I faced my own broken table.

On Thursday, the day after the meeting with the attorney, I began a new way of being in my world.  I’m not just changing a few ways of thinking, I’m changing many ways of thinking AND many ways of acting.

I am taking the broken table of my circumstances and turning it into something new.  I am standing in the now of my life, and without looking back at how I got here, I’m designing a new now and a new future, and in doing so, I’m also designing a new past, because my new thoughts are revising my past as well.

In other words, I’m carving something awesome, something abundant, out of the broken pieces of my life.

What will my carving be when I’m done with it?

I don’t know, but I’ll share it as soon as it takes shape.

In the meantime, I offer this to those who think they can’t possibly be happy in their current situation:

I am standing in the aftermath of a personal hurricane that destroyed much in my life (the finances are just a few of the “trees” that have died in my “what is” reality), and I am happy.  I’m laughing.  I’m having fun.  I’m appreciating.  I’m finding positive aspects.

You don’t have to wait for alignment to bring you something you desire in order to feel good.  Just feel good.  Get in alignment.  And bask in “ahh” of that ease.  Then allow the universe to hand you the tools you need to carve something new.

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In 1996, when I moved to the beach, I bought a book, Drawing For Dummies, because I thought that now that I was going to be a free-spirited divorcee, I would try my hand at art.  But I was so busy walking on the beach and writing that the book sat on the shelf.  Until 2008.

After my accident in 2008, I spent months off my feet and much of that time, I was on pain meds that clouded my thinking. I didn’t do much writing or reading.  Something about my pain or the painkillers or the shock of the accident disconnected me from my usual link with words.

Still, I craved creativity.  I wasn’t content to just watch TV or listen to music.  I wanted to bring something to life. Law of attraction reminded me of that book on my shelf.

Starting with just an ordinary pencil and a pile of computer paper and eventually progressing to a sketch pad and an array of drawing pencils, I began on page one of Drawing For Dummies and worked my way, exercise by exercise, through the whole thing.

And I discovered I could draw.  And I LOVE it.

To teach various techniques, the book’s author leads you through drawing all sorts of things, from imaginary critters to real animals to facial features to people to landscapes.  I drew it all.  Whatever the author said to draw, I drew.

I quickly learned, though, that what I truly love to draw is the animals.  All the other exercises were fun, but the animals lit me up.

Once I finished the book, I began drawing pictures of cute animals.  I started playing with cartoon animals.  I even made up a crossbreed of animal that I will probably turn into a story one day.

My experience taught me two things—when I’m drawing, I’m moving toward alignment, AND when I draw animals, I am in the Vortex. I don’t care whether my drawings are good or not.  I have no plan for my drawings.  I don’t struggle with them.  I just enjoy the heck out of drawing animals.

In this simple lesson lies all we need to know about how to get in the Vortex, about the “draw of the Vortex.”

Your Unique Drawing

Getting in the Vortex (if you’re not sure what the Vortex is, watch the video at the end of the last post) requires, first and last and everything in between, paying attention to you.  You can’t get in the Vortex if you’ve not prioritized your NOW happiness at the top of your to do list.  You just can’t.

We’ve had it backwards all these years.  We thought if we got here or did that or became this, we’d be happy.  Truth is that we can’t get here or do that or become this UNTIL we get happy.

Hard work doesn’t draw you into the Vortex.

Goal setting and to do lists and complex plans don’t draw you into the Vortex.

Discipline doesn’t draw you into the Vortex.

Doing what someone wants you to do doesn’t draw you into the Vortex.

YOU becoming aware of the essence of you and the wonder of you and the delight of you and the fun of you draws you into the Vortex.

It’s the difference between me drawing a human face and me drawing the face of my sweet girl, Muggins.

It’s the difference between the pull of creating and the struggle of pushing something into being.

I’ve recently, finally, plopped into a virtual WHEW hammock, a place of “I give up.”  I’m no longer pounding anything into place.  I’m just hanging out here being drawn into the Vortex by that giant energetic pencil wielded by the genius artist called my feel good thoughts.

And what a canvass the Vortex is.

Just in the last week alone, things have happened that have lopped $1500 off my monthly budget.  That’s $1500 LESS per month I need to come up with to keep us going.  That’s HUGE.  And it fell into place with no effort on my part at all.

Last week, I got the idea to revamp the sales page on my e-book/audio program, the Novel Writing Made Easy System.  I’d just finished reading a 34 page e-book that cost $27, and I realized that I hadn’t emphasized in my sales page how much value I was 0ffering (almost 400 pages in two info-packed e-books, two 150 + page workbooks, 5 1/2 hours of audio, and thousands of pages in bonus materials) for my price of $67.  Selling isn’t my thing, and usually, messing with sales pages is a struggle for me.  It’s not the kind of writing I enjoy doing.  But from inside the Vortex, it was a breeze.  I got an idea, and the next day, the page was rewritten.  (It took until a couple days ago for Tim to put the changes on the site, but that’s okay.) What will it lead to?  I really don’t care.  It’s not for me to figure out.  I just did what I felt compelled to do.  I did it from my Whew Hammock, and I let it go.

Once in awhile, I catch myself thinking about how I could drive traffic to the site or wondering what other things I could do to improve conversion rates etc., but as soon as I do that, I do an about face and let that go to.  It’s not my job to wrestle with the details.  It’s my job to get drawn into the Vortex.

It’s my job to pay attention to what I like, what makes me feel good.

And I can honestly say that I am spending MUCH more time in the Vortex than I ever have in my life.

Here’s what it’s like in the Vortex:

Fast Tube by Casper

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So there’s this Vortex, to use Abraham-Hicks terminology.  It’s an extraordinary font of energy—organized, creational energy that holds everything asked for by everyone.

I think of the Vortex as a sort of energy clearinghouse where everything that’s asked for is given, where every request is put into place in a cooperative way for the good of all who are asking.  EVERYTHING asked for, from a better tasting toothpaste to the vastest monetary fortune imaginable, is given in the Vortex.

Obviously, the Vortex is the place to be.

And how do we get there?

We all know the answer to that one, right?

We get there by releasing resistance, by aligning with Source … in a nutshell, by feeling good.

If you really commit to staying aware of your energy, to really knowing whether or not you feel good (don’t laugh—most people in our society are not conscious of how they feel), you can almost discern a pleasurable elastic pulling sensation when you are sucked into the Vortex.  At times, I swear I almost hear a THWAWCK sound too.

And in the reverse, when you’re disgorged from the Vortex, you can feel that too.  I experience “devortexization” (like my new word?) as a sudden energy plummet.  This enervation is generally accompanied by muscle tension (hence my About Face technique) and for me, a sudden desire to eat something with no known nutritional value.

But remaining in the spirit of Fun, Fun, Fun, since I had my Riding the Rapids epiphany, my number one priority has been looking for ways to flip the switch on my energy and vibration.  I need as many ways to do this as possible because I am living some pretty strong contrast right now.  My “what is” is compelling to my pay-attention-to-the-physical-reality trained mind.

Even Abraham-Hicks has noted that it’s much easier to get into and stay in the Vortex before you manifest something lousy.  For that reason, law of attraction coaches and writers who have never created much of a mess, whose biggest “problems” are an extra 10 pounds of body fat, a need to double their six figure income, and a desire for more travel or fame or whatever, don’t impress me much. It’s relatively easy to manifest wonders when 90 percent of your “what is” reality is already wonderful.  The great stuff you have now, if you appreciate it, is the springboard to even better things.

But what of those of us powerful creators who, in our earnest efforts to understand the law of attraction, managed to focus more on lack than on abundance and created big, big messes? It takes a bit more finesse to find ways into the Vortex when your “what is” is 90 percent unpleasant and 10 percent pleasant.

Because I’m in that 90 percent unpleasant place, I’ve made it my intention to find as many ways to feel good as possible, and the law of attraction has responded to my intention with many fun methods.

My latest method is singing.

The High Note Method Of Revortexization

I’ve always enjoyed singing, but most of my singing was always done when I was alone in the car or the shower.  A few years ago, though, Tim (my hubby, a talented singer and musician, graduate of the Army School of Music) talked me into joining the community choir he directed.  Tim informed me that I’m a tenor, and he explained that I would be singing harmony. I’d never sung harmony before.

But I learned how, and I discovered that not only am I good at learning and remembering harmony notes, I love doing it.  Whenever I was singing, I felt good.  All thoughts of negative circumstances fell away.

The choir is no more (long, very non-Vortexy story, so I’ll skip it), and for the last couple years, I’ve been so caught up in the yuck of “what is” that I haven’t even remembered to sing much.

But in answer to my request for more fun, the law of attraction popped a song into my head: “On Top of the World” by the Carpenters.  Yes, I thought.  That’s how I want to feel.

So I tweaked the lyrics a little to refer more to abundance than love, and I began singing that song dozens of times a day. Then law of attraction nudged me with another song—“Believe It Or Not,” the theme from Greatest American Hero. I tweaked those lyrics too: “Believe it or not, I’m walking on air, I’ve always wanted to feel this free …”

Tim started singing along with me, and now he’s going to write me harmony lines for these two songs, and I’m going to sing harmony to his base melody.

Singing launches me into the Vortex every time. If I feel myself going low (low energy, low on the emotional scale), I can get higher and higher with singing.  What works for me is not just music but singing.  Just listening to music doesn’t quite do it for me.  I need to sing, and I need to know the lyrics, or better yet, rewrite the lyrics to fit what I want to be saying.  This focused singing releases resistance in an instant.

Not everyone responds to singing, but if you’re at all musical, you might give my High Note method of “revortexization” (as opposed to devortexization) a try.

1.  Pick an upbeat song. If you’re looking for some uplifting songs, check out Ducky’s Joyful Springer channel on Blip.fm. She’s a Vortexy DJ, and she blips feel good songs.

2.  Look up the lyrics online (search the song name plus lyrics).

3.  Change the lyrics as needed to say what you want to say.

4.  Practice singing your version of the song until you’ve memorized the lyrics.

5.  Sing your song any time you start to feel yourself being pulled out of the Vortex.

This is a really fun process that acts like a big old eraser, wiping out the siren song of “what is.”

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If you’d like a reminder of the Vortex’s power, watch this video:

Fast Tube by Casper

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Photo by emilyamimu on Flickr.

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