What Is Your Mental Atmosphere?

Why do the same types of events or same types of people—ones we don’t want to experience—keep turning up in our lives? We work on ourselves, we know about Law of Attraction; so, what the bleep is going on?

That’s a big topic, of course, but we need to start somewhere: We’ll start with mental atmosphere. Ernest Holmes, in his book, The Science of Mind, says this: “Each person has a mental atmosphere which is the result of all that he has thought, said and done, and consciously or unconsciously perceived. The mental atmosphere is very real, and is that subtle influence which constitutes the power of personal attraction, for personal attraction has but little to do with looks. . . . No matter what the lips may be saying, the inner thought outspeaks them, and the unspoken word often carries more weight than the spoken.” Yep. It’s what’s under the “ground” that influences what’s above the “ground.”

My thoughts about why we get the repeats we get is that we have unresolved (to our satisfaction) issues. Let’s say there’s someone in your life you feel did wrong by you or to you, in whatever measure and over however long a time, but you either know you will never tell them off or get back at them the way your ego would like you to or you can’t (they’re somewhere unknown to you or in some state of being where you can’t reach them, or are deceased). In this type of situation, your ego-aspect is going to feel unfulfilled. And it’s going to nag the hell out of you. Only, ego doesn’t nag you about what you should be doing at the inner level and what your lesson is for your personal evolution, but about what “they,” those you’re upset with, should be doing that makes them take responsibility and, perhaps, even make amends. Talk about your hamster-wheel experience.

Water seeks its own level; so does energy, including and especially your energy. Your energy is your signal that you send out, the signal that gets matched. It’s the program language that shows up on your life screen. If you have an unresolved issue with someone or with a particular event—which actually means there is something within you that is still unresolved, you’ll continue to draw people and circumstances to you, to give yourself yet another opportunity to figure out what to do or choose how you will deal with it. But, of course, there’s more to this than meets the eye.

Which is your predominant mental atmosphere based on or in: Ego or spirit? Are you sure? Your ego-aspect sends out signals, like a duck call that attracts ducks to you, while your spirit-aspect subtly nudges you to take care of matters in the highest possible way—ultimately, for you and how you feel about yourself and life. The tricky part is that the ego-aspect thinks it’s all about the other person, people, or event, and what you need to say or do to put them right or in their place. Sometimes, that is necessary because you’re actually helping another with their evolution by doing this, as well as your own evolution (e.g., people who allow themselves to be doormats finally get kicked in the proverbial or actual butt enough by others and life to speak up and stand up for themselves and learn how to make better, more conscious choices in their best behalf—that’s real progress, isn’t it?). Your spirit-aspect knows that it’s always and in all ways primarily about you. You are who and what needs to be healed and re-Minded, and only you can determine what that will entail.

This is not a judgment, because goodness knows I have my moments, but you can watch people who talk the talk but don’t really walk the walk, even though they think they do. Now, granted, every one of us has the right to feel what we feel and to even react when something comes out of the blue and metaphorically (or literally) slaps us. Those not-good feelings we have at such times are to be expected, allowed, and paid attention to.

If you believe you’re supposed to be so evolved that you maintain your cool no matter what happens at the moment it happens, and even afterwards, well, how’s that working for you so far? How realistic is it, really? We’re not here to be emotionless; we’re here to feel emotions. Emotions guide and teach us, if we let them, as we’re meant to. But we’re also here to figure out how to manage emotions and how to use them for personal growth, rather than allow them to manage us and thwart or cause our personal growth to stagnate.

Proficient and efficient management of emotions is an ideal to work toward, but don’t burden yourself with the heavy expectation of perfection. It’s more important that after you freak out a little or a lot, you use your inner tools to regain your inner balance so that the way you deal with whatever is going on is done so with personal integrity and head-and-heart alignment. If you err, forgive yourself. This means you assess what didn’t feel good at the inner level and figure out why it didn’t feel good, and how to improve what you think, feel, say, and do the next time and how you handle yourself from this moment on. And there’s likely to be a next time, based on what Holmes’ said about mental atmosphere, until you figure out some stuff about you. Then, even if a next time happens, you will feel about it and handle it differently, because you’ve evolved a bit or a lot.

If you’re not attracting the quality people and events and circumstances you really want, look within, rather than outside of you. Get your mental dipstick out and check the level of your energy. What kinds of thoughts and feelings do you predominantly have each and every day? That’s your mental atmosphere. What you put into the field is what you get out of the field.

What happens is not random, even though we sometimes or often would like to believe that. Your experiences are for your personal evolution; and here’s the really freaky part: they are designed or agreed to by you. That can be icky, but it’s true. And when you grasp this, you’ll have stepped into the realm of higher spiritual understanding, which may be uncomfortable at first but gets easier and far more rewarding as you progress.

And no matter how much your ego-aspect wants to put responsibility for your mental atmosphere on someone else, for whatever reason, that’s just not the way it works. That’s not the way to get desired experiences and results—at the inner and outer levels, or to feel about you and life the way you really want to.

Will you choose an ego-based or spirit-based mental atmosphere? One keeps you a prisoner of your own making; the other sets you free. Freedom at the inner and outer level: It’s a good practice, one you’ll appreciate.                     

          

Practice makes progress.

© Joyce L. Shafer

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Joyce L. Shafer is a Life Empowerment Coach dedicated to helping people feel, be, and live their true inner power. She’s author of “I Don’t Want to be Your Guru, But I Have Something to Say” and other books/e-books, and publishes a free weekly online newsletter that offers empowering articles. See all that’s offered by Joyce and on her site at http://stateofappreciation.weebly.com