The Secret Is Wags

Remember the 1985 Dire Straits song, “Money For Nothing”?  The song’s repetitive stream of conscious lyrics didn’t do much for me, but a line from the song popped into my head yesterday:  “Now that ain’t workin’ that’s the way you do it.”

On our anniversary, Tim and I talked a lot about money identities and working for money vs. aligning for money.  The line from that song kind of sums up the conclusions we reached.

For the week leading up to Tim’s and my anniversary, I’d been thinking a lot about Greg’s new money magnet status. Having reached a conclusion similar to mine—that you must have the identity of the person you want to be in order to become that person, Greg took on his new identity of a favored, successful businessman, and his “what is” reality has been matching that identity ever since. (more…)

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Calvin Coolidge said, “If you see ten troubles coming down the road, you can be sure that nine will run into the ditch before they reach you.”

For the last several months, I’ve been staring down the road at a whole passel of financial troubles. These troubles are HUGE and UGLY and TERRIFYING and they have nasty names like Run Out Of Money and Lose My House and Get A Job I Hate.

These troubles put off a stink that makes me feel nauseated. They suck oxygen from the air so it’s hard for me to breathe. They make such a racket, a cacophony of blackboard scratching type sounds in my head, that I find it hard to focus on anything else.

But these troubles are DOWN THE ROAD. They’re not here, not right in front of me.

But I’ve been calling them to me. I’ve been whistling at them with my thoughts. Every time I focus on them, I’m tossing a rope down the road, lassoing those nasty troubles and yanking them toward me.

Why would I want to do that?

I don’t. So I’m stopping.

In the last couple days of finding things that are good in my now, I’ve noticed that where I’m standing on the road TODAY is pretty nice. This spot in the road has lovely trees that sway in the breeze. It’s touched by gentle sunshine and sprinkled with fresh rain. It’s a spot where my dog, Ducky, can play with her toys, and my husband can tell me he loves me. It’s a place where I can have a glass of red wine by the fire, a place where I can laugh, and I place where I can be intrigued and inspired.

I’ve noticed that when I look at where I am today, I don’t notice the troubles. No nasty smell. No oxygen depletion. No sound in my head.

It’s peaceful here in the now of today.

THIS is where I am. All is well.

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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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Last weekend, Tim and I watched the movie, Shallow Hal.  It so inspired me to change how I was seeing the world that I decided to start a Feel Good Helpers page to talk about the movies and other media that can help us feel good.

I won’t repeat the plot of the movie here, but the gist of it is that Hal saw a beautiful girl where other people saw a fat girl.  When he fell in love because of what he saw, his life was transformed into what he wanted it to be.

I realized that seeing abundance is exactly the same as seeing beauty.  It doesn’t matter whether it’s really there or not.  If you see it, you feel different.  And if you feel different, you’ll vibrate different.  And if you vibrate different, by the law of attraction, you’ll attract different things into your life … abundant things.

I’ve decided to see MONEY:  all the ways my life reflects financial abundance instead of looking at the ways that it doesn’t.

Sure I have debt.  Sure I get creditor phone calls.  Sure I have dwindling resources.  Yadda, yadda, yadda.  NI!

But I have a wonderful home.  I have beautiful things to look at.  I have a wonderful Springer Spaniel.  I have two cars.  I have appliances that do the things I need them to do.  I have clothing.  I can buy groceries.  I can pay my bills right now.

What will happen if I keep my attention on this evidence of financial abundance instead of the “reality” of lack?

I don’t know.  But I’m going to find out.

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Earlier this week, a VERY wise friend e-mailed me the following advice:

“It’s okay if you have set backs, doubts and stuff.  It’s okay.  It’s life.  That’s only human and makes sense, especially when you’re in the predicament you’re in.  You’d be really crazy not to worry BUT my humble opinion is that you really have to try harder.  I’m not sure if you’re trying to follow the principles of Abraham-Hicks.  Are you really?   You seem to have the teachings down pact.  You know a lot of the quotes, but are you putting it into real practice and making an attempt to continue that practice?
”I suppose it’s okay if part of your experiment is that you tried to do the happy thoughts thing and you weren’t able to sustain it for X amount of days.  I guess that’s part of the experiment, too.  However, I’m just wondering …

“Question:  How many more days do you have for your experiment?   One more week?  What will it take to truly give in to GOOD thoughts (HAPPY thoughts) for just 5 more days and truly see if Abraham-Hicks is right — truly see if your experiment works or not?  What will it take to put some blinders on against the negative stuff, the negative thinking, the negative memories and only think positively for, for example, 5 days?   What will it really take to really put Abraham-Hicks teachings into REAL practice — for 5 days only.  Not 30 days, not 20 days, not even 10 days.  I guess, sometimes, we have to start with small steps, baby steps.  Maybe 30 days of this experiment is not good for you.  It’s not what you need.

“It’s okay to feel overwhelmed and have doubts and be confused but you set out to do your experiment.  So, why don’t you start over for the next couple of days and take each day one at a time.  And if you feel the panic coming on or the doubt coming on or the confusion coming on, you do everything in your power to fight it.  Do more of what makes you happy when you feel that doubt coming on.  And see what happens.  That’s your real experiment.  That’s your real reason for experimenting.  To see if it will really work.  Right now, it’s not working fully because you’re not fully participating in the process.  And then if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work.  Then you move on.  You can truly say that you gave it your all in this experiment process and it didn’t work.  Am I making sense. Stop thinking about what you shoulda, coulda, woulda done in the past to fix any problems…   Think about what you’re going to do in the moment and how you’re going to ACTIVELY implement what you’re learning from Abraham-Hicks teachings.

“My whole point is keep trying to stick to your experiment exercise.  Keep trying to let the happy thoughts rule and let’s see what will happen.  See what will really happen.  Give your experiment a real chance to see if it works or not.  In order to do it, you really have to try.”

And I couldn’t possibly have said it any better myself.

So for the rest of the month of February, I have a new motto.  I try harder.

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Today’s Abraham-Hicks quote was:

“If there is something that you desire and it is not coming to you, it always means the same thing. You are not a vibrational match to your own desire.”

And I say, hmmm.  So how do you become a vibrational match?

Abraham-Hicks say that you’re a vibrational match to your desires when you’re feeling good.  Tim says he’s feeling good.  But what he wants isn’t coming.

So I’m confused.

And I’m unable to ignore it.

A friend recently wrote to me and suggested that I’m not doing a very good job of sticking to my experiment.  She’s absolutely right.  And to do that, I have to ignore what is or what was, including that Tim claims to feel great and rich and still doesn’t have what he wants.

I can’t turn my attention from this yet.

It’s like being given a choice of two hypodermic needles—one supposedly is a poison and the other is an antidote to poison you’ve ingested that’s about to kill you.  They’re not labeled, so you wait to see what results other people get with the needles.  If someone who took the same poison you did tries needle #1 and gets no help from it and dies, are you going to choose needle #1.  No way.

So my experiment seems a little silly right now.  Maybe I’ll get an attitude adjustment.  I’m waiting for it.

And if anyone out there has any experience with achieving vibrational matches to what they want, I’d love to hear about it.

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I sounded really upbeat yesterday, didn’t I?

I lied.

I was pretending to be upbeat.  Not the same thing as actually feeling it.

I had a horrible thought.  What if Abraham-Hicks is wrong?

I asked Tim today if he would have made the decisions he did with regard to our finances—the decisions he made that got us into this mess, the ones that he didn’t tell me about until it was too late for me to fix the problem—if he’d never heard of Abraham.

You see, it worries me.  Tim only remembers the last 4 years of his life.  I’ve been his most powerful influence in that time.  I told him about Abraham-Hicks.  He believed me.  He’s based his decisions on that ever since.

But what do I know?

I’ve read their stuff.  It makes sense to me.

But I have no proof—well, just a little.

But Tim has been feeling like a lottery winner, like a rich person, for a very long time.  Why do we still have no money?

If you read Abraham-Hicks books, you can’t help but notice that they tell you that if you spend even a few days feeling like you want your life to be, you will notice shifts in your experience.  Tim’s financial experience has not shifted in a positive way since he started feeling rich.  In fact, it’s gotten worse.

So what if Abraham-Hicks is full of beans?

Then we’re screwed.

And I’m not finding freelance jobs that will pay me more than $500 a month.  Neither has Tim.

ARRRRGH.

Well, going back to Abraham-Hicks and assuming they know what they’re talking about, here’s a Daily quote from the other day:

“The one who fears something the most is the one who has it most activated in their vibration. And so, it is logical that they would experience it.”

See?  That makes sense.  I’m afraid of not having money, so I’ve activated it.

I’m SO confused.

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Saturday evening, Tim and I watched a funky little romantic comedy movie called, The Guru. It’s about a young man, Ramu Guptal, played by Jimi Mistry,  who comes to the United States from India intending to find fame and fortune as an actor and dancer.

Ramu’s plan doesn’t go well.  He finds himself on the set of a porno movie, unable to get certain of his equipment to function properly for his role.  One bizarre thing leads to another and Ramu ultimately finds himself in the role of “The Sex Guru” to rich people.  He’s a total fake, but he has one good piece of advice for his clients, the advice he’s lived by, the advice that brought him to the United States to begin with.  Ramu tells people, “Move your feet to the beat of your heart.”

I think Abraham-Hicks would agree wholeheartedly with this advice.  Isn’t that what feeling good is about?

Today’s Abraham-Hicks quote is:

“Today, no matter where I’m going and no matter what I am doing, it is my dominant intent to see that which I am wanting to see.”

Instead of going through my day living up to other people’s expectations and seeing the world the way society sees it, I’ve been intent on moving my feet to the beat of my own heart, looking for what I want to see.

I want to see financial security, freedom to spend the day as I desire.  Today, I’ve seen that.

In the movie, Ramu’s mis-step into the porno world ends up leading him to the girl of his dreams, and moving his feet to the beat of his heart ultimately wins him that girl.

Yeah, I know it was a movie.  But what is life if not a fiction we create day by day with our choices and intentions?

What if I could write my life as I want to see it?  What if my feet could move to the music of my heart’s desires?

No struggles today.  I’m dancing to the beat of freedom and contentment.  Ahhh.

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I’ve been over-thinking, as usual.

Yesterday, a wise woman posted a comment on my last post, Pivoting Until I’m Dizzy.  She said, “…since this is an experiment why don’t you continue to do what Abraham-Hicks says, instead of listening to logic for now?  Your 30 days are almost up.  So what would happen if you went with the flow of what AH says for the meantime without the interference of “logic”?  That’s the whole purpose of the experiment.  Right?”

Right!

BUT … I kind of screwed up the experiment.  If I’d actually been feeling good every day, or at least most of the time, since I started this experiment on January 17, waiting to see what happens makes sense.  Unfortunately, once I started all this freelancing nonsense, I stopped feeling good.  So I don’t have consistent stretch of feel-good time behind me, like I wanted to have to see if this would work.

Yesterday evening, I was stuck in Ponderville, going around and around on the not-so-merry-go-round in town square.  I want to have Tim win the lottery (have I said that he wins between $5 and $8 every drawing now?) and just write my own projects OR in the alternative, have my agent finally get around to reading my latest novel and decide to represent it AND/OR have a new agent take on my dog memoir.  That’s what I want, and I want to focus on that.

BUT I don’t have the faith to sit around drawing pictures and feeling good while EXPECTING that he’ll win or that I’ll sell a book in the next couple months.  He’s been saying he’ll win for over two years.  I can’t get myself to KNOW that he’ll do it in the next 2 or 3 months, and if he doesn’t, we’re screwed.  Agents are slower than slugs, so I can’t count on them.

That’s why I looked into freelancing.

BUT … I hate the idea of freelancing.

So I’m unhappy if I freelance and I’m unhappy if I do nothing, and I can’t seem to come up with other options.

Tim asked me last night, “What’s your path of least resistance?”  This is the way Abraham-Hicks teaches you to choose your course of action.  You take the course of action that brings up the least amount of resistance, meaning, the least amount of negative feelings.

I told Tim it was a tie—both choices brought up a lot of negative feelings.

Because I messed up my experiment, I don’t feel comfortable doing nothing for another 30 days.  Because I want to do nothing, I don’t feel comfortable freelancing.

Back and forth … which path is right?

Then I remembered that Abraham-Hicks says that it doesn’t really matter which path you choose as long as once you choose, you get easy with it.  In other words, it doesn’t matter what you’re doing.  What matters is how you feel about it.

So, could I get easy with freelancing?  Could I see it as okay?

I started looking for positive aspects of freelancing:  It would bring in a little money so I wouldn’t feel like we were on the thin edge of disaster.  I could stop at any time.  At least I’d be at home with my dog.

And suddenly, I felt a little relief, that ahhh feeling that says, “This is a path of least resistance.”

I realized that I could go ahead and pursue these jobs with an attitude of, “if I get them, fine; if I don’t, fine.”  And if I do get a job, I can do it with an attitude of “this is a growth experience,” and “when Tim wins, I’ll quit and refund client money.”

So I went ahead and contacted a potential client and told him I could do his job.  And I fixed dinner, enjoyed a TV show, posted to The Joyful Springer (always FUN!), played cribbage, read, and had a good night’s sleep.

This morning, I got an e-mail from the potential client.  He’s considering my offer and will get back to me Monday.  I immediately felt an “ahhh.”  I liked the space he was giving it.  I then felt compelled to bid on two more projects.  I wrote proposals, sent them.  And now I’m going back to reading.

I feel okay.  I feel good.

I’m getting easy about my path.  I still want Tim to win the lottery but I can be easy about doing some freelance work too.

I’m also throwing around ideas for a new book project.  Who knows?  Maybe I’ll come up with a million dollar idea?  I could get real easy about that.

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Few people have tried harder than I have.  I’ve been charging after writing and financial success for two decades.  I’ve written millions of words.  I’ve amassed over 2000 rejection letters.  I’ve sold short stories, poetry, greeting card copy, essays, columns, books, and e-books.  I’ve written web articles, newsletters.  I’ve build dozens of websites and free reports and e-zines.  I’ve taken thousands and thousands of dollars worth of training and courses, not to mention the thousands more I spent getting my B.A. and law degree ….

My point is that I haven’t been sitting around on my currently rather ample ass all my life.  When I have a problem, I don’t whine about it—I DO something to try and solve it.  When I want something, I don’t just daydream about it.  I go after it.

Ever since I started selling my writing, I’ve met a lot of people who say they want to be writers.  It’s amazing the number of people who want to write.

Humans love to ask each other, “So what do you do?” [translation:  how do you make money?]  Back when I was a lawyer, when I answered that question with, “I’m a lawyer,” no one ever said to me, “I’ve always wanted to be a lawyer.”  In fact, what I usually got in response to that answer was a lawyer joke … how many lawyers does it take to…….  Anyway, after I became a published author and I answered that question with, “I’m a writer,” at least half the people I met (or more) said to me, “I’ve always thought I had a book in me,” or “I’ve always wanted to be a writer.”

A few years ago, I made a new friend who told me she wanted to be a writer but after trying it, she got discouraged with the rejection.  I asked, “How many rejections did you get?”

She said, “One.”

I just stared at her.

She said, “I don’t take criticism well.”

No kidding.

So this woman wanted to be a writer, but she spent her days surfing the internet and reading books.  She actually had some talent (I read some of her stuff), but she never did anything with it.

When she asked me for advice, I said, “Write.”  If you want to be a writer, you have to WRITE, a lot.

Hardly a day goes by that I don’t write.

I know I’ve wandered off course, here, but I do have a point.

I have tried HARD to achieve the success and financial freedom I want.  I have made goal lists, created vision boards and binders, written letters to God, angels, and the universe.  I have visualized and affirmed.  I have read literally hundreds of books on how to have a great life.  I have WORKED to get what I want.

And here I am with dwindling funds, not nearly the success I’ve desired, and I’m finally realizing that the secret to getting what you want may not just be visualizing it then going for it.  The secret might be just as easy as what Abraham-Hicks says it is:  feel good.

A couple days ago, the Abraham-Hicks quote was:

“There isn’t anything that I cannot be or do or have, and I have a huge Nonphysical staff that’s ready to assist me, and I’m ready.”

I’m beginning to think that I’ve been underutilizing my “huge Nonphysical staff.”  While I’ve been slogging along with my nose to the grindstone and my eye on the ball (and as my stepfather says, “How is anyone supposed to get anything done in that position?”), my Nonphysical staff has been playing volleyball on the beach and drinking fruity cocktails with little umbrellas in them.  I’ve been trying to do all this stuff myself.  How dumb is that?  It’s like the CEO of Boeing trying to build the airplanes while the engineers and machinists build mobiles out of rivets.

As I’m going after freelancing jobs, I’m getting this sense that I’m doing it again—putting in the hard work.

Abraham says that it doesn’t matter what you’re doing—you have to “get easy” about it.

So as I find myself starting to obsess over DOING the right things to get the work I want (actually I don’t want the work at all—I have so many other things I’d rather be doing; I want the MONEY), I am catching myself and wondering, what if it’s easier than we think? What if this whole nose to the grindstone, pull yourself up by the bootstraps (I don’t even HAVE bootstraps … or a grindstone for that matter), “no pain, no gain” crap that our parents, teachers, and the media has brainwashed into believing is just plain wrong?

What if it really is easy?

What if being easy, feeling good, is all it takes to have what you want?

The other day, a good friend of mine said to me, “Well, you know you can’t just sit around feeling good about something and expect it to come to you.  You have to DO something after you feel good.  That’s what The Secret said.”

I said, “Mm hm.”

But I don’t KNOW this.  In fact, I’m starting to think the whole DOING is highly overrated.

Of course, I don’t feel totally confident about this, which is why I’m doing the freelance job search.  But I AM doing it with a different attitude.  I’m still telling it like it isn’t.  In my mind, I’m a lottery winner, a very happy, free lottery winner with all the time I need.  I’m looking for things that are FUN to do.

This morning, after I slept in until nine (heavenly), I got up and walked in the forest for an hour and a half (more heavenly).  I watched Ducky play with her friend, Dixie (if you don’t smile when you see happy dogs playing, you might want to turn yourself into NASA and get tested for alien infestation).  Tim and I made whole wheat pancakes for breakfast (which we ate about noon).  Then our friend, Lyn, called and asked, “Can Ducky come out to play?”  We met her and her dog, Jake (Ducky’s best friend), at the park and watched them play for a half hour.

Now Ducky is snoozing on her bed in front of the fire.  Tim and I are playing Scrabble.  Outside, the day is peaceful and crisp.  I’m totally and completely relaxed because I’m a lottery winner (in my virtual reality).

This is the experiment, and I am ready to prove my hypothesis:  feeling good (the human equivalent to tail wags) is the secret to getting what you want.

I have sent my Nonphysical staff out to bring me the physical money that matches my lottery winner state of mind.  And if it’s going to take a little time to get that, they can bring me a freelance job to keep Ducky in dog treats until the REAL winnings come in.

I am the happy executive of my life … ready to move onto EASY street.

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