Archive | July, 2009

Where Are You Being Cared For?


When I returned home recenbly from my daughter’s college graduation, my husband and I discovered that our washing machine had died. As had the refrigerator. (The fridge had been going before I left, so this wasn’t as much of a surprise, although it was a frustration.)

So, it being Memorial Day weekend, we decided to go check out the sales to see what we could find. We came home the proud parents of a new washer, dryer and refrigerator.

Three days later, our new babies were delivered to us. Happily, I set about playing house (enjoying cold food and ice, and washing and drying several weeks’ worth of laundry). On Friday night, my husband discovered a big puddle in our garage, and we traced it back to the kitchen under the refrigerator. We had a flood on our hands. Uh-oh.

My life suddenly became consumed with learning all about what happens when you have a flood in your home. (Particularly in South Florida where the humidity and heat is so high.)

Three weeks later and we’re still getting the estimates for the repairs to the kitchen. I am astonished at how much brain energy something like this consumes!

Christina and her mama. Christina and her mama.

Last weekend, my daughter had her bridal shower, in Maryland where she lives. And another wedding gown fitting. Way cool, and way fun. A delightful break from the past few weeks, and a soothing balm to my soul to spend even a few more days with her.

Here is where I am right now with this whole kitchen issue:

I feel blessed, very blessed, to have found a wonderful contractor to help us through the process of drying and now restoring the kitchen.

I feel blessed to know that Sears is intending to handle the flood damage repair costs with integrity and grace.

I feel blessed to participate in this celebration of my daughter’s life, to be a part of it, and to know that she wants her mama there by her side as she moves into this new phase in her life.

I don’t always feel present to these truths, however. There are times when I feel frustrated, annoyed, and just plain MAD that this (or something else) has happened. And when I do, the process of shifting my emotions (or my focus) is often challenging and time-consuming.

I want to stay feeling peaceful and blessed most, if not all, of the time. Yet, when I start to complain about what has happened – whatever it is – I begin to feel more and more frustrated.

This, then, becomes a no-win situation. Because, as you know, where ever your attention and your intense emotions are, you are creating, whether it is something you want, or whether it is something you do not want.

My challenge becomes to re-focus my attention onto what I want, not what I do not want, so that I can create what it is I want into my life.

My homework for you: take a look at your life and answer these questions.

Where are you challenged – and blessed – in your life?
Where are the challenges you are dealing with being handled with integrity and grace (not just by you, but also by others)?
Where are you being wanted and honored by others?
Where are you being cared for and guided by Spirit?

Are there areas in your life where you are busy complaining, and as a result, creating more mess … and missing the blessings?

If you will choose to shift your thoughts to focus upon the areas where you are being held, where you are being cared for and where you are being guided by Spirit, you will see those blessings more clearly. If you will choose to shift your thoughts to focus upon what you do want, rather than what you do not want, you will begin to create it more and more quickly.

For me, this happened last week when the tile guy came out at the suggestion of the contractor. He checked the tile for damage (which was not apparent to the eye, by the way). As he tapped each tile, we could hear which ones were damaged from the water. I would never have known about this had it not been for the contractor.

Relief and gratitude filled me as I realized that even in the midst of this frustrating experience, I was being taken care of.

So again, I ask you: where in your life are you being held, being cared for, and being guided as you move through your frustrations and challenges?

If you look, you will see. I promise.

 

 

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What Do You REALLY Want?

Last Thursday, my daughter, my only baby, graduated from college. And the Saturday before that, my nephew graduated from college. (Exciting, huh? Oh, yeah, Baby!)

robgrad2achristinagrad

When asked about their futures, they had similar answers, but very different plans. My daughter, Christina, wants to get a job in her field of theatre. And she’s engaged to be married, so she’s full of wedding plans. My nephew, Rob, is heading to law school in the fall. Different plans. And both of them say they really don’t know what they want to do with their lives. Similar answers.

Yet they both want the same things: happiness, love, fulfillment, abundance, freedom, peace of mind. We all want that, don’t we? (I know I do.)

So the question really isn’t “What plans do you have for your future?” or “What are you going to do now?” (although those are the most commonly-asked questions of people their age). Rather, the question is “What is it that you want in your life?”

Or even more to the point “Who are you going to be (and what are you going to think) to create what it is you that want?” Of course, nobody would really ask that question to someone they just met. That’s a very intimate, very personal question.

So, I’ll ask it here, for you to ask yourself: “Who am I going to be, and what am I going to think, to create what it is I want in my life?”

Hmmm… let’s just back it up a little bit further.

Let me ask this question: “What is it that I want in my life anyway?” Most of us think of what we want in life as the avenue through which what we REALLY want is attained or traveled.

For example, let’s just say I met someone who wants to be a chef. And I ask them “What is it about being a chef that you love?” Then they tell me “Oh, well, I love working with food.” (That’s the avenue through which what they REALLY want is attained.)

Then I might ask them, “Great! So what is it about working with food that you love?” They may say, “I love tasting it, and I love creating something beautiful and delicious.” (Still more of the avenue, but we are getting closer to the heart of what it is they really want.)

So I then would ask, “What is it about creating that you love?” And they might say, “Well, I get into a space where everything just falls away, and I become one with the food.”

Well, dear ones, then THAT right there is what you want in your life. It is the connection to Spirit, to the Divine that you are seeking. And it is through the avenue of being a chef that it is attained.

You can try this out with anything you want in your life. Say, for example, you want to be in a loving relationship. Then you can ask yourself “What is it about being in a loving relationship that I love?” You’ll begin to see that it isn’t about having another person in your life, but rather it is about the connection you have with that person that is the expression of Divinity itself – and that is what you ultimately want.

And the happiness, peace of mind, abundance, love, fulfillment and freedom that I mentioned above? Well, they are all simply expressions of that connection.

The more we connect to Divinity or Spirit, the more we experience those characteristics – no matter what we do in our lives. When we be connection, we then experience the fruits of that beingness.

So, what is it that you really want in your life?

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Check Those Thoughts at the Door!

A new friend on Twitter asked me this week “How do you stay so positive and upbeat?” I told her that I’m not always like that, but that EFT has made a huge difference in my life in being able to be that way a lot of the time.

My mother tells me that I was an unhappy child. I remember being unhappy as a teenager (not so much as a child, although I do remember some difficult periods), and making a few life choices as a young adult that I wish I hadn’t (I actually call my 20s my “stupid 20s”). Then my daughter was born and there were rainbows and sunshine and lollipops in my world.

Still, I hadn’t learned how to control my thoughts. I focused a lot on what I didn’t have, and I focused on how life wasn’t fair and where I felt less than. I thought if I could control the world around me then life would be good.

Welllll, it doesn’t quite work that way. No, indeedy. And I was about to learn this – big time.

Trauma occurred. In a big way. Ouch. It wasn’t pretty and it definitely wasn’t fun. For two and a half years, I tried many different ways to get out of the emotional pain I was in. I trained in and became a Reiki Master. I trained in and became a hypnotherapist. I trained in and became an Angel Therapy Practitioner. I studied gardening and created one. I got help from numerous different therapists. I meditated, and studied book after book to learn how to heal. Still, I got triggered over and over and over again.

Then EFT entered my life. I trained in and became an EFT practitioner. And during the first training, the emotional pain I had been in for two and a half years released. It was gone. I was stunned at how effective this simple tool was. And thrilled that I had learned it.

That was in 2002. I’ve been using it ever since – on myself, on clients, on students, on family, on friends, on pets, even on strangers! It is effective. It truly works.

Still, I had to learn the next phase: to think better. We are powerful creators, and we create through our thoughts. While I understood this conceptually, living it – being it – was a different matter. Know what I mean?

Slowly, I began to understand the power of my own thoughts to create my life. Not just my thoughts, but the energy – or the intensity of the emotion – behind my thoughts. I learned how to think better.

Oddly enough, it seemed the more I practiced thinking better the more I could see all the areas in which I wasn’t thinking better. sigh… At times, it felt discouraging, which I finally realized was me creating more of the same. Round and round and round the circle I went, until I began to really get ahold of my thinking process.

Consciousness is a process. It doesn’t happen overnight. Pieces of “Ah-Ha!” happen and things fall into place. We forget and we remember. We remember and we forget. And always, we move forward – even though at times it seems as though we are moving backward.

This week, I am with my 22-year old daughter, my daughter’s fiance, my mother, and my former husband. We all get along great, for the most part. Until a bump in the road occurs. Then I get to take a look again at my own beliefs, my own expectations, my own fears, my own desires, and adjust them accordingly. Or not.

I get to choose my own level of happiness – regardless of what anyone else is doing, saying, thinking or being.

Is it hard? Yeah, you bet … sometimes. But I know what’s in it for me if I stay the course and maintain my own level of peacefulness.

Am I successful? Not always. More so than I used to be. But I still get triggered by something someone else says, or does. (This very morning, I heard myself having a conversation in my head with someone that wasn’t very nice. In that moment, I realized I was creating my future by having that conversation and I had to “Stop it!”) It is in those conscious moments that we hear ourselves and change our thoughts that we then choose the direction of our lives.

What are you thinking into being?

 

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Just How DO We Create Anyway?

That’s a rather odd thing to say, don’t you think? Well, actually you probably don’t, because you are likely familiar with the Law of Attraction and the power of your thoughts. Still, in our society, many people don’t really believe they think things into being. Rather, they believe they do things into being.

And, well, maybe they’re right.

At least, partially.

I mean, you have to DO something in order to get what you want done. The dishes don’t do themselves, do they? And a house doesn’t build itself. You do have to take action. But the action comes from the thought first.

I’m talking here about this type of understanding. The absolute clarity that everything begins with a thought first. And the belief that you carry about something is a well-practiced thought. It’s one you carry around with you, wearing it or holding it to you like a precious jewel.

“I’m right!” you cry. “See all the evidence that supports me?” And you point it out and continue to validate that belief.

(We all do this, by the way.)

Test it for yourself. See how you feel about the following statements:

1. I am the epitome of health.
2. I can create all the wealth I desire.
3. I have perfect love in my life.
4. I can do anything I want in my life, in my work, in my world.
5. I have all the time I need to do all the things I want. (Yeah, that’s a goodie, isn’t it?!)

I’ve just written this, and I’m hearing a lot of “Yeah, but…”s! (…Oh, wait, let me check, are they mine?)

Ok, well, some of them are mine, but I’m certain I’m hearing a few of yours, too, right?

Uh-huh.

So, here’s the thing: we all have “Yeah, but…”s and we have “Yeah, uh-huh, I can do that!”s, as well. It’s rather like they exist side-by-side. And sometimes one screams louder than the other, and it seems like that’s all we hear. (This is called being triggered, by the way.)

But the beginning of creating what we want in life is to begin to recognize all of those times when we are triggered – (and here’s the really important part) – to realize that it’s just a part of ourselves that isn’t the Truth of us, but rather our STORY. It is our very well-practiced thought.

Yes, it feels like it’s the truth. But it’s not. It’s just something we have practiced thinking over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over… (get the point?) again. And because we practiced thinking it like that, we believe it to be the truth.

A belief is pretty powerful, let me tell you. People are willing to sacrifice their lives for their beliefs. Some actually do.

So, let me ask you: what are you practicing thinking so much that you are believing it?

By the way, beliefs aren’t bad – they just are.

“Are what?” you ask.

“They just are. They just exist. They just are.”

When we know we have given them power is when we see how they show up in our lives by seeing what we have in our lives that we want (or don’t want).

So, Here’s the Cool Thing…

Beliefs can be changed. Yup. They can be changed. (I know you know this; I’m just saying it because it goes here. It’s the Truth.)

So, if a belief is something you think over and over again, then a way to change that belief is to think something ELSE over and over again.

(It ain’t easy, let me tell ya. But it can be done, thank goodness, otherwise I wouldn’t be here.)

For example, if you believe “I can’t create wealth and I frankly don’t know anyone who has. Who am I kidding? What am I trying to be? This is a joke!”

Well, first of all let me say “COOL! You know what you believe. And that’s HALF the journey!” (If you don’t know, then you can’t change it, right?)

Well, how about trying something like this: “Even though I don’t know how to create wealth, and I don’t know anyone who has, it’s ok. There are plenty of people out there who have created wealth (even though I don’t know who they are personally) and I can learn from them. I can take classes, and I can take inspired action to be able to create my wealth. And I can think wealthy thoughts, and, oh, wow, I really like thinking wealthy thoughts. They make me happy. So, I’m going to think some wealthy thoughts and just see what opens up for me out of that.”

I think you’ll find it’s a bit softer than “I can’t create wealth.” And when it’s softer, then you begin to move in that direction. Things begin to open up for you. And then you begin to notice more weath coming into your life. Keep it up, and before you know it, you are wealth in expression.

It all begins with a thought that you keep thinking over and over and over and over (did I say over?) again.

So Here’s the Next Really Cool Thing…

If you use EFT with those newly tried-on thoughts (or even with the old ones) you’ll move more into alignment with the new ones (and out of alignment with the old ones) faster. Yes, F-A-S-T-E-R. It’s as though you turbo-charge the new beliefs into being.

Does it take time?

Uh-huh. Of course.

But, what the heck? You’re thinking those other less-than-empowering thoughts over and over and over again anyway. Why not just gently begin to change the focus and your intent, and think far more empowering thoughts over and over and over again. You will begin to see changes in your life. Dramatic changes.

I promise you. I really do.

Now go practice. And have fun with it!

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