First, I must apologize for the lack of posts over the last month or so.  I’ve changed jobs, gone from the corporate world into my own business and that has taken up a great deal of my time.  I’ve created 2 other blogsites for this business and getting them up to speed has been time consuming, great, but time consuming.  I will be posting more going forward as I’m beginning to be inspired by conversations which inevitably spur me to author another post.  Such is the case now.

I got an email from a dear friend of mine, Beth, which resulted in a phone call be me, as it often does. (I love talking with her)  Beth and I have a kinship of some kind, have always been able to relate to each other no matter the time between our conversations.  She is married to an Army buddy of mine whom I respect immensely.

During our conversation we began talking about spirituality, a topic we both study often, and that turned to a touch on religion.  Beth has more of a religious background that I do but she isn’t attached to it.  She is interested about what works to bring her peace.  I’ve always respected this about her.

Somewhere along the line in our past conversations I gave her the impression that I didn’t believe that Jesus of Nazareth had ever lived.  Must have been a book we exchanged or one that I showed her, “The Jesus Mysteries” I think, and she mentioned that although non religious spiritual teachings interested her she still liked the thought of miracles and of Jesus Christ. (I draw a distinction for myself between Jesus of Nazareth and Jesus Christ)  I mentioned this distinction to her as being true for me.

Miracles

Sometime ago, I read something somewhere that talked about the miracles that Jesus performed.  The piece that I read spoke of it being a matter of faith of the blind man that he regained his sight when Jesus touched him and that had the blind man had no faith that Jesus could restore his sight that it wouldn’t have been restored.  Such was the description of the miracles that were performed by this most holy of men.

I think miracles are merely events that our minds have not the capacity, due to our perception, to understand.  They are events that we can’t explain in simple terms.  Is this not the way of true faith and belief?  Faith and belief cannot be seen or understood but they both seem to move mountains and seemingly insurmountable obstacles from ones path.  Without faith and belief in oneself what can be accomplished?  Even faith and belief in things exterior to oneself can create enormous results as with the faith in Jesus as the Christ.

There was something about Jesus that caused others to have faith in his power.  What can be holier than that?  I believe we all have this power within us.

The Placebo Effect

In clinical studies, doctors have proved time and time again the effectiveness of sugar pills.  Patients repeatedly show improvement in their medical conditions when told that the medicine will help them yet, it’s just a sugar pill or placebo.  What causes this?  Why do people respond so well to fake medication?

It’s funny really.  I chuckle to myself when I think about it.  Sweet Tarts cure headaches!  I love Sweet Tarts and have known this for years!

The simple answer, if there are any, is that faith and belief cause a reaction in the mind/body connection that allows self healing.  The medical profession hasn’t given this much credibility yet prove over again through their own studies that it’s true.

If someone intensely believes in something, that makes it true for them regardless of evidence to the contrary.  The physical body responds to this immediately.

What implications does this have for you?  What are you trying to acheive that has not happened because your faith and belief in your ability to do the thing isn’t there either consciously or subconsciously?

When you believe, the subconscious doesn’t know the difference between a real physical experience and one that is imagined.  What we don’t know about how our minds can limit our ability to achieve.

I’m reading, and listening to, The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle.  This is an incredible work as is his next book, A New Earth.

The interesting thing to me is the discussion about resistance to the present moment by focusing so much on the past or future that you neglect the now.  He says to take glancing looks at the past and future but live in the now rather than living in the past and future and taking glancing looks at the now.  Release the resistance to now, this present moment.

This immediately confused me as I focus intently upon what I’m intending to create in the future but on the other hand made complete sense. If you’re not satisfied with now, you’re not feeling abundant about now..how can you ever be abundant in the future?  Focusing on the future implies that now isn’t good enough but now is all we ever have.  In the world of spirit, there is no past or future there is only now.

Spirit, which is the essence of who we are, is permanent.  The world of form is impermanent in every regard.  Nothing really exists outside our core of being.  It’s all transient, changing from one form to another.  Focus on the inside and the outside will take care of itself.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again……hmmmmmmmm.

I’ve manifested things in my life that I’ve focused upon without strain or effort.  In fact, I would say that I’m far more successful in manifesting when I focus on it intensely then let it go.  I may come back to it briefly from time to time but I don’t let it occupy my every thought.  I go about my day as I do with my to do list checking things off as they are accomplished and the thing I have previously focused on either shows up or an idea occurs to me to phone someone; it always seems to work that way.

Every attention must be given to the now if you are to achieve any goal.  Thinking intently about the future so much that you neglect to act in the now will only result in your not achieving your goal.

Matthew 6:34: Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself…..

One day at a time?  I am not a religious person but this quote, if interpreted with a clear head, points to this.  Take no thought for the morrow…

I highly recommend Eckhart’s books.  They speak to me very deeply.  There is an inherent truth, a universal truth, in them that I know is true for me.  They feel as if they are the back bone of every other teaching I’ve studied over the years.  The world has waited a long time for the teaching of these truths in this way.  I personally endorse his work.

This is so interesting, isn’t it?

I had an experience recently that spoke to me and I just have to share it.  The lesson here is invaluable.

The Reunion

My wife’s family gets together every year for a family vacation in Lake Tahoe.  There is lots of food, lots of fun and I look forward to it every year.  This year, I was delayed in getting to the family reunion due to business and I caught up with them on Saturday night, they all arrived on Friday.

My 3 years old son, Ryan, is always the hit of the party no matter where he goes.  He’s just an incredible child. Of course my opinion is biased.  However, he is mildly spirited and has a strong will.  He is swayed only be distraction, it seems, and we’ve learned how to adapt to that.  My brother in law, however, hasn’t.  He sees Ryan twice a year at best, he is a  Professor of Psychology in England and comes home for the reunion and the holidays.  He doesn’t have any children of his own.

Trust

My brother in law was playing with my son and they had a bucket of ice out of the freezer.  He let Ryan alone with it briefly and told Ryan not to spill the ice all over the floor.  Well, being a 3 year old, he promptly spilled all over the floor all the while looking his uncle directly in the eye and giving him that all too familiar sneer that we’ve grown to know and love.  His uncle became very upset, angry even, saying that he had trusted Ryan to not do what he did and he knowingly did it anyway.

Let me repeat that for it’s full effect:  “I trusted him not to spill the bucket of ice and he knowingly did it anyway. He knew what he was doing was wrong yet he did it anyway.  He betrayed my trust.”

(Long pause for an enormous deep breath)

Later, I asked him what he meant by that Ryan had betrayed his trust.  He repeated what he had said earlier and then added that nothing would change his feeling on the matter.  The first mistake is trusting a 3 year old.

So I asked, “is it accurate to say that you trusted Ryan to do what you expected him to do?”  He said, “yes, I did and he didn’t do it.” “So you expected that he would do what you wanted him to do?” I repeated.  He said, “yes, I did.”

“The basis of your trust in him is, in this case, that he do what you wanted him to do, correct?” I asked.  He said, “yes, I guess it was.”

Trusting

I don’t know about you but my basis of trust with everyone on the planet is that they would make the choices that are right for them, not right for me.  I trust them to do and expect them to do what is right for them.  I trust only myself to do what is right for me.  Because of this distinction, I trust everyone, even those I’ve never met.  I don’t mistrust.  I don’t even see, with this distinction, how mistrust is possible in everyday situations.

With a 3 year old, this distinction is even more important than with an adult.

Generally, I think we put too much emphasis on trusting others.  We are all different people and interpret situations and events differently.  How can we ever trust that someone else will act in accordance with our values, wants or desires in total?  With this mindset, its like we want to be disappointed!

Ok, so do you like disappointment?

When we have the expectation that someone will act in accordance with our wants, we are setting ourselves up for a let down.  Begin to recognize that our trust is best placed with ourselves, our own expectations guiding our own actions, not with the expectation that others will act as we would like them to.

This distinction allows us to have control over our emotions.  We begin to expect less from others because we have freed them, in our own minds, to act in their own best interest.  We are let down less by others or, rather, let down less by our own expectations of others, and have healthier relationships.

You will be continually let you down if you have the expectation that others will do what you perceive to be the right thing to do.  When you expect others to do what you feel is best for you, you’re projecting yourself onto other people.  The truth is that no one will act in accordance with your expectations all the time, nor should they.

Free yourself from expecting others to behave as you’d like them to and trust yourself to behave in a manner that is right for you.

Oh, my brother in law did end up getting the gist of this.  He’s an aware guy and a pretty darn good uncle too.

“The Secret” is one of the largest, if not the largest, “new age”/”new thought” publications ever released.  While there is a great portion of this information that I agree with,  I think, in substance, it leaves something on the table to the point of almost being a disservice.

When I began studying the law of attraction, it seemed so enigmatic and ethereal that I had difficulty grasping the concept of it.  My thought was “so all I have to do is write something out that I want, review it several times per day, meditate on it and it will come to me out of nowhere to the now here?”  Something about this just didn’t make any sense.  What I took from it was that all I had to do was watch for the signs and when I saw one, act on that and my desire would manifest before my eyes.

Hmmm…

Some things, sure, others, well, no

While in Bob Proctors’ coaching program, he said many times over that when he first started using the process, he didn’t believe it would work and yet, for him, it did.  I believe this to be true.

Many, many millions of people have benefited greatly from this process.  There is something to be said for having a desire and working toward that. I have absolute faith in a life force that operates for us to our greatest and higher good.  Everyone has access to this.  For me, though, there was something missing.

I worked on this process for quite a while and still use it.  I haven’t seen anything manifest in front of me that I didn’t justly earn.  While I can say, without any hesitation, that there have been times when this process has worked for me.  The example of the visualizing and believing that there would be parking spot where I wanted it when I needed it to be there has worked for me year after year.  (this works for me to the point of being almost startling) However, there seems, with me, to be a limit on what I can attract.  There have been wants and desires that I’ve had that haven’t manifested at all nor did I see any signs that would lead me to believe that something was on the way. (in all fairness, signs that I recognized)  I began to search for the missing elements that would make this work for me in every way rather than just in some ways.

What I’ve Learned

Thoughts, as I’ve said in the majority of my articles, that have either been conditioned into us from outside sources or from ourselves control what comes to us.  To attract what we want, our thoughts must be in alignment with what we are focusing on.  If we focus on something that we subconsciously don’t believe can come to us, no amount of wanting it will allow it to come.

When you’re not manifesting your desires your thoughts and the conditioning of yourself must turn from the circumference of your being to the core of your being.

What I mean is that your thoughts have to switch from the object of your desire which may be exterior to you or the circumference of being to the interior of you or your the core of your being.

Simply, from what you want to who you are.

What you are wanting is not coming to you because, I feel, you’re not ready to receive it and therefore it is not being allowed to manifest.  This made total sense to me.

It begins as simply as changing your opinions and becoming somewhat indifferent to what occurs around you.  When I’ve done this, changes happened and opportunities manifested seemingly out of nowhere and almost instantaneously.  There was effort involved but it was minimal and WHAM! there it was.

When I opened myself up to possibilities ( “I suppose this could happen” ) and began to ask myself the right questions the whole world seemed to open up in front of me.

When the core of your being changes about what you want to manifest, the signs of the things you are wanting to create will become clear and visible.  You cannot see that which you don’t believe in your heart of hearts you can create.

When what you’re wanting is not coming you’ve got to look inside for the resistance to what you want.  It is there.  You’ll find this resistance from asking yourself questions that will reveal to you how you FEEL about the question at hand.  This feeling will let you know immediately why it’s not coming then from there you’ll be able to open yourself up to the possibilities and creating your life as you want it to be.