Mind Your Mindset

Which thoughts do you start your day with? Which thoughts do you repeat to yourself most often? How are your thoughts working for you, or do they work against you?

One of the best things we can do for ourselves is get our thoughts aligned with our desired experiences, primarily, how we feel about ourselves, life, and Source—our inner experience, which is the only one we have absolute control over. Catherine Ponder’s book, The Secret of Unlimited Prosperity, does, of course, focus on aligning thoughts with prosperity, but it does much more than that, because your mindset influences your Good—all of it. Your Good is all of your resources: mind, energy, talent, skill, health, money, relationships, information, and experiences.

As many spiritual seekers and practitioners have realized, abundance, prosperity, health, and every other effect in our life is always influenced by a particular cause: Our mindset. To help you with this, I’m going to share with you a mix of Ponder material from this book, sometimes slanted with my preferred lingo and some personal comments. What I’m offering to you is a “formula” of sorts that you can read every morning as part of setting your mindset at the start of each day. To this end, I’m not going to use quotation marks to indicate what’s quoted—that could become cumbersome. Just know that most of what you’re about to read is from her book, with some personal alterations of mine, such as using Source rather than God, and is written in article form. Here we go.

Begin now to open your mind to the unlimited supply of the universe that is yours by divine right. Affirm often: I do not depend on persons or conditions for my supply. The One Source of Infinite Love is the source of my supply, and Source is constantly opening new channels of abundance and prosperity to me. I am open and receptive to my highest good now. There is no numbering of the avenues through which supply may come to me. My resource is as far-reaching as the universe. I expect my supply through all avenues of contact with life. Not from one specified point, not from two or more specified points; but from all points of the universe, unlimited supply is crowding upon me now. Source, I thank you for my unlimited increase in mind, energy, money, and affairs.

Your supply can come to you through expected channels, in expected ways, and it should. But your supply can also come to you through unexpected channels, in unexpected ways. From all points of the universe, your good is constantly crowding upon you. Give thanks that the universal spirit of abundance and prosperity is providing richly for you now.

The simple formula to use if you are not receiving the good you want in life: Ask what you can give to make way to receive your good. Then freely and quickly give it. There are those pious souls who believe that when they give, they are not supposed to expect to receive. And so, of course, they do not receive. Their very attitude blocks their good. State thankfulness every day for the benefit you can provide to one or more others, in ways appropriate for them and you. Your abundance and prosperity is from Source. Your abundance and prosperity is omnipresent. You give, through tithes of money and or of yourself, so you have a right to receive immediate abundance and prosperity. You choose to now allow this and receive all the good Source has for you and wants to give to you.

When you LIVE (not just know) the law of attraction, you never need to go seeking—your own always comes to you. This has been my personal experience. When I relax, trust, and allow Source to work in my behalf, it’s a very different experience than when I struggle and strain, and it is or can be the same for you. This is a key point: It’s not about what you can get from the flow, but that you get into the flow. Dwell upon the goodness of Source in yourself and others. Think about and expect success, whatever that means to you, and for any or every area of your life and how you feel about yourself. Radiate the attracting mental atmosphere that draws success. As Emerson wrote, “Great hearts send forth steadily the secret forces that incessantly draw great events.”

Dr. Ernest C. Wilson said this about the law of mental attraction: “…when you dissolve the barriers of repellent thought and substitute a receptive attitude of mind, good things come to us in unexpected and wonderful ways, and sometimes with a promptness that is astonishing.” How do you clear up mental resistance which has repelled your good? You must begin by picturing the best for yourself and for others. Stop picturing yourself as weak or misunderstood. Stop dramatizing yourself as a martyr. If you want to be thought of as long-suffering, you will always have something to suffer about. Begin anew picturing the good and expecting it.

When we change what we think, we change what we attract. Although we cannot force good into our life, we can invite it by dwelling on it. When we do this, our good appears sometimes in amazing ways. Practice this statement: I invite the powerful, loving action of Source into my life, and every need is met. I expect the best and attract the best in every experience.

Psychologists say that when you think you have been rejected (by others, life, and even yourself), you have subconsciously rejected something. Your good never rejects you. If you cannot accept your promised land mentally, you cannot enter it. This explains why some people demonstrate Truth and some do not. Those who get results are those who have released the past and have accepted mentally the possibility of new good. Those who hang on to the past, reject their good, and reject Source’s help in trying to give it to them, never do get the good they seek.

Your good has not rejected you, but you may have rejected it by holding on to someone or something of the past or present. You may be holding on because of resentment, hate, un-forgiveness, criticism, or emotional attachment. That which you complain about keeps you out of your promised land; that which you possessively hold on to keeps you out of your promised land. If you continue to hold on to it, you will never realize the greater health, wealth, and happiness that are your divine right.

Are you so attached to old patterns of living that you cannot get along comfortably without them? Are you emotionally attached to lack and illness? If you truly want abundance, prosperity, and health, do you still gain satisfaction from self-pity over your financial or health problems? You must give up something to make way for health, abundance, and prosperity—probably self-pity and bitterness; probably the belief that you have had a hard time. Source can only do for you what Source can first do through your mental attitudes.

When we’ve reached the point where we take only the good in each experience and let the rest go, how swift and joyous will be our progress toward the realization of a happy, harmonious life. Start thinking about your life the way you want it to be. The way to accept mentally your promised land is simply to change your point of view. Recognize another set of circumstances or events as possible; then dwell upon that possibility. When you have accepted your good mentally, it will quickly appear. Suddenly it will all be done, and with one bold stroke you will find yourself in your promised land.

Realization precedes manifestation. A realization of Truth will banish every ill, and the prayer or affirmation through which realization comes is the prayer or affirmation that asserts the Truth, and is mentally accepted as Truth. Take only the good from each experience and let the rest go. Begin now to recognize another set of circumstances as possible, and refuse to be hypnotized by appearances. Mentally accept and claim your highest good now, and allow your progress to be swift and joyous. It’s a good practice, one you’ll appreciate.          

         

Practice makes progress.

© Joyce L. Shafer

Scarcity Mindset and the Hungry Soul

We are a planet of souls hungering for one thing and fruitlessly trying to feed that hunger with another. The only one who can change this for us is us, individually.

We can comment all we want to about the economy, but we need to look at our role played in it becoming the way it is. We played, and still play, our role from a scarcity mindset, which has led to all sorts of nonsense and discrepancies happening in our individual lives, our communities, and globally. And our souls continue to hunger as a result because we continue to try to quell this hunger with the incorrect sustenance. What can I possibly mean, you ask? I’ll explain by starting with a trend that amazed me when I learned about it.

One Sunday morning I went to the diner in my Brooklyn neighborhood. Annie (not her real name) had one job there and that was to make sure everyone who wanted coffee got it almost as soon as they sat down, and to keep it coming: definitely not a high-paying position, no matter how much we appreciated her service. That morning Annie looked upset. Since it was our routine to chat, I asked what was going on.

She explained that her daughter wanted a Sweet Sixteen birthday party and that to provide what she wanted, which they estimated to cost around $25,000, Annie and her husband were sweating out waiting for approval for a second mortgage on their home. The party date was getting close and she didn’t know what they’d do if they couldn’t get the money, and she wasn’t sure how they’d make the extra monthly payments, on their wages. According to TV episodes about these parties I paused to watch for a few minutes while channel surfing, Annie and her husband would be giving their daughter a party that might be considered a bit shabby, when compared to parents who could or would spend a hundred thousand dollars or more on such an event.

My thought then, and still, is: Since when?! Since when are parents obligated to provide a sixteenth birthday party that costs as much as a wedding might (or more), or spend as much as part of a college education (or an entire one); and perhaps go into debt to do so? Since someone gave such a party, and then others felt the need to match that or outdo it, which to me is a form of competing with no real useful purpose for doing so. What are we thinking?! What are we teaching the next generation about the value of money, self-worth, and fulfillment? What kind of economy and mindset (and burden) does this create in individual lives now and in the future?

We may say we want to be freed from money concerns, or feeling inauthentic, but do our beliefs and actions support this? Minister Joyce Meyer said, “You’re not free until you have nothing to prove and no need to impress anybody.”

Two weeks after I published an article about what I would call our not-enough syndrome (“I don’t have enough; I’m not enough) and how this impacts us every single day, and nearly every single experience we have, I got Lynne Twist’s book, The Soul of Money: Reclaiming the Wealth of Our Inner Resources. There was a segment in there about our not-enough mindset. It was so close to what I’d written that I was relieved I had printed proof that I’d read it weeks after I’d written what I had. It was, also, affirming to learn that I was in good company on this thought path.

The topic of what is enough brings to mind a segment in a documentary about the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. One man realized a need that members of his community had, abandoned together as they were until others entered their part of New Orleans with relief and resources: Diapers. He filled a shopping cart with a variety of packaged sizes then looked for mothers who might need them. A woman carrying her infant approached him and asked if he had the size she needed. He sorted through the stacks and asked her how many packages she wanted. She responded, “Just one for now. I know there are other mothers who need them for their babies.” Those may not be her exact words, but they are as close as I can recall.

The man had taken the diapers from an unmonitored store that had been broken into by some who greedily took items not necessary for survival (theirs or anyone else’s), and by some, like him, who took only what was needed for survival or assistance. He didn’t charge for the diapers. And even if the mother would have preferred to make sure she had several packages on hand for her baby or had asked for several then sold a few for money she might need, her understanding and empathy for other mothers trying to care for their infants and toddlers in such dire conditions was her compassionate moral compass. These two people fed their souls through this action, not their pockets. Their actions also fed the souls of others who were in the mental-emotional space to witness this and understand it.

Our souls hunger and we feel this keenly. This hunger is buried beneath the hunger for more money so we can have more, often mostly so we can be “judged” more by others, and therefore feel or “finally” believe we are more than others have influenced us to believe. It’s a vicious merry-go-round we’re on; but the thing about a merry-go-round is you can choose to get off that mind-spinning ride.

In the book, Twist writes: This book is entitled The Soul of Money, but it is really about our own soul and how and why we often eclipse it, dismiss it, or compromise it in our relationship with money: the way we get money, use money, give money, and or sometimes just try to avoid thinking about money…. Sufficiency isn’t an amount at all. It is an experience, a context we generate, a declaration, a knowing that there is enough, and that we are enough…. Sufficiency is not a message about simplicity or about cutting back and lowering expectations. Sufficiency doesn’t mean we shouldn’t strive or aspire. Sufficiency is an act of generating, distinguishing, making known to ourselves the power and presence of our existing resources and our inner resources.

Another thing I greatly appreciate is that Twist devotes an entire chapter to the topic of appreciation and the power within it. My own perspective considers the appreciation mindset as the opposite of scarcity mindset. A scarcity mindset keeps you focused on problems, even if you falsely believe you’re focused on solutions; and this creates a most uncomfortable, frustrating circle that seems to have no end. An appreciation mindset lets you focus on the resources you have on hand and within you; and, sometimes these resources are all you have to get started or start over with. But a scarcity mindset will drag you down about this rather than lift you up. And it will attract more scarcity, whereas appreciation attracts more of what you need and want because you DO appreciate what you have and what you receive; and you put it to good use.

Pooling sentences from two paragraphs in the book, I offer this: "What you appreciate, and the way you direct your attention, determines the quality of your life…. In appreciation of all that we are and already have, we can resee the possibilities, identify a vision, make a commitment, and act on it."

When we focus on problems and scarcity, we can’t see the resources we are and have, resources that could help us move forward and feel and express our true strength and gifts. Except, we might tend to move forward to ease any financial strain we feel, which is understandable and perhaps needed, but what about the strain our soul feels from being so wrapped up in believing we’ll never be happy or fulfilled unless we have more money and stuff, in order to get nods of approval from others?

What about the fact that “more” is like the mathematical number Pi, a number that keeps going and we never find the end of it? At what point will enough money or stuff be enough so that we can feel the way our hungry soul wants to feel? The hungry soul will never be fed by money and stuff, only by fulfillment; fulfillment can be equated with meaning, meaningfulness. We have to figure out what fulfillment means to us, separate from money and stuff, separate from the opinions of those stuck on the scarcity, not-enough, gotta-have-more-to-feel-I’m-more merry-go-round. Please understand that there is nothing wrong with having more; the problem stems from what the motivation for more is about.

Our lack of understanding the soul of money, which Twist explains in the book, is one aspect of our hunger. I’d say another or the other aspect is self-love. Lack of appropriate love for our selves is another epidemic, just as scarcity mindset is; but I believe they tend to walk hand-in-hand. If we truly love and appreciate ourselves, and understand what creates fulfillment or meaning for us, what choices will we make about how we earn money, use or spend money, teach the next generations about money, and contribute or donate money and why and to achieve what result? One fact is that a soul can hunger in a person with great monetary wealth as readily as it can with someone struggling to pay basic monthly expenses. So, it isn’t necessarily or only about the money, but the hungering of the soul that needs addressing.

You know if you need to re-examine your relationship with money, and whether or not you have a scarcity or sufficiency mindset. You know if your self-love has fullness, and whether or not you know and consistently reassess what creates or would create fulfillment for you. If any of these are out of balance, your soul is hungering and you can find what satisfies it.

Perhaps it’s time for all of us to pause for just a moment from the incessant pursuit of more so that we can feel and know we are more, and recognize and appreciate what we have and who we are, including and especially our skills and talents that provide value to others and fulfillment for us; what we can do with what we have; and find our getting-off point from the scarcity-mindset merry-go-round. It’s a good practice, one you’ll appreciate.           

Practice makes progress.

© Joyce Shafer

What Does Self Forgiveness Have to Do with Success?

The premise of Law of Attraction is actually simple. But, to reach this simplicity, you often have to travel through “layers.” Self forgiveness is one of those layers; and it influences use of Law and success results.

Do you ever wish you’d done something in the past differently, or think about how results of one or more mistakes caused you to feel pretty bad about yourself, or humiliated? Or how maybe you allowed things you wish you hadn’t. Maybe you had some rough patches in life and feel you could have handled such times better. Maybe… But, those times are over. It’s what you’re telling yourself now, in the present, about those past events that matters.

Ernest Holmes wrote what follows in all capital letters, but he wasn’t part of the electronic age where that would be considered rude; so just imagine this quoted part in all caps for emphasis: “No person whose entire time is spent in the contemplation of limitation can demonstrate freedom from such limitation!” I would add that you don’t have to do this the entire time for it to affect you, just enough of the time and with enough feeling. However, Holmes’ point is well taken.

There are many things we might need to forgive ourselves for, including thinking less of ourselves, believing we don’t deserve better, criticizing ourselves for not being perfect—whatever THAT is, or holding our past against us in some way. These are forms of non-forgiveness we practice on ourselves all too often, without realizing the full impact.

Carrying self-condemnation and condemnation of others is truly a burden. Because of how Law of Attraction works, we add to the weight of this by holding on to such thoughts, which multiplies their effect on us and our lives. This is a form of resistance… resistance to well-being for us and others. It resists the feeling of freedom we want and pursue.

Abraham-Hicks wrote, “If you are resisting anything, you are focused upon it, pushing against it, and activating the vibration of it—and therefore attracting that which is like it.” You might ask yourself in which ways you resist success in any area of your life—work, relationships, finances, harmony, serenity, health, etc.—with condemning or self-condemning thoughts. This can be a pretty revealing thing to do.

There are lots of writings about forgiveness of others you can access, so I’ll leave that to you, if that speaks to you at this time. It does influence your success-ability, though. But, I focus on self-forgiveness here because it’s the one we carry closest to us.

Forgiveness is really about putting what’s been an emotional burden to us down, about letting the story go and never repeating it again—and telling a new, better story or telling the old story in a new, better way, if telling it is truly beneficial to increase wisdom or do good in some way. The burden is all the thoughts and emotions you have about something that happened or what someone or you did, which you drag like boulders behind you through life. When you replay something in your mind, you relive it in your cells and glue it more firmly into what you perceive as “truth.” Positive or negative. And Law of Attraction is bound by its nature to supply you with whatever it takes to match “truth,” as you perceive it.

Perhaps you pull up memories of a relative telling you something negative about you, or your third grade teacher saying you weren’t smart—all just their opinions, of course. Perhaps you’ve made this your practice, without realizing what this does to you. When triggered emotionally, you may ask, What happened in the past?—which pulls up negative memories instead of asking, What can I tell myself that’s supportive and moves me in the direction of my desire… makes my feeling-vibration a greater match with my desire?

You can’t imagine of yourself as More if you see yourself as Less. Any negative self thoughts are a form of resistance to the truth of who you really are. One way to practice self-forgiveness is to stop allowing the opinions of others (past or present), or what you imagine their opinions are, to have more weight or merit or validity than what Source thinks. Source loves you, unconditionally, because you and It are one. It may be time to create a new concept of or for your Self, one that lets you see how much good there is about and in you. And let this new concept be the one you wake to each day.

The burden of any self-condemnation blocks success in any area that you desire to improve or create. The lightness of release allows you to more easily focus on creativity and desires and results than on condemnation and how bad such thoughts make you feel. Such thoughts cause you to resist success instead of allow it—because they cause you to believe you don’t deserve better.

Deserving is a man-made concept. Source doesn’t think this way, because you are an expression of IT, and all you are IS Source—there is no separation except in your thinking. Otherwise, Source would have to determine Itself as undeserving at times, as well, and that can and will never happen. Nor does Law of Attraction take deserving into consideration either. It’s an impartial, non-thinking “mechanism” that responds only to what you think/feel into it.

The “lighter” you are from release of self-condemnation the happier you’ll be. The happier you feel the more “attractive” of what you desire you’ll be. Stop feeding self-condemning thoughts and you can begin to believe success is as much your right as it is anyone’s—and it is! You can observe how you feel, to know whether your energy vibrates as a match with what you desire (manifestation) or matches its absence (resists manifestation). It’s far too easy to tell yourself negative stories about you—and worse!—to believe them. “A belief is only a practiced vibration.” (Abraham-Hicks)

Sometimes negative thoughts about the self happen so quickly, you notice them but not for what they are, much less their overall effect on you. This means a lot of practice happens with such thoughts. Begin to connect what you think and feel to what you experience and you’re on your way to understanding Law of Attraction and using it more in your favor, until you become so good at this, it becomes automatic to you.

Practice makes progress.
© Joyce Shafer
Note: In this week's issue of State of Appreciation (week starting Mar. 16) Guy Finley advises us to leave painful thoughts and feelings behind. Gabriella Kortsch discusses what happens when we give up the need to be right. Poet Wendi Romero writes about gratitude and how simple, though grand, it can be. I also share the buzz about Eldon Taylor’s new book, I Believe: When What You Believe Matters, which was a hit on George Noory's Coast to Coast AM this week (you get access to many bonuses when you order the book through the link I provide). Also, I share links to an online course that starts Mar. 19 for writers and wanna-be’s, and how to get a free copy of You Can Attract It by Steve Jones and Frank Mangano. The SOA site’s Directory Listings—Global and Local—offer products and services to meet specific empowerment and healing needs, and the Documents page has numerous free downloads available for you and your friends. http://stateofappreciation.webs.com

How Doing This One Key Law of Attraction Principle Can Increase Happiness

One key to unhappiness is something you do, I do, and nearly everyone you know and don’t know does. Fortunately, we can choose not to do it, or at least not do as much of it, so we and others can be happier.

Increased happiness is no longer elusive just as soon as we realize it’s about attitude—though there’s more to this—SOMETHING SPECIFIC—that you need to know. Here it is.

Ernest Holmes wrote about this particular Law of Attraction KEY: “There is a direct law responding to condemnation and a direct law responding to praise and appreciation. It is, of course, the same law used in different ways… No man can be happy who lives in a continuous state of condemnation of people, conditions and things.” Yikes! That’s so powerful I bolded it. It’s also something we can easily get direct, if not personal, evidence of.

Let’s face it—we’re kind of addicted to criticizing. But, are we ever genuinely happier as a result of criticizing anyone, anything, or ourselves? No. In fact, it makes us unhappier more often than not, because it feeds our negative perspectives, and they grow. We are unaware that our tendency to criticize so freely is a root cause of unhappiness and discontent—ours and those whose lives we touch. Gandhi said, “Gossip is a form of violence.” So is being overly critical. So, why do we do it?

We criticize when we feel restricted. We criticize when we feel a need for validation, recognition, respect, or appreciation. The perceived or obvious absence of any of these can cause us to feel frustrated. When we’re frustrated, we get verbal—in our minds or out our mouths. If we didn’t feel restricted or infringed on in some way, we’d likely have no criticisms to make. All of this points to something in particular: frustration is a call for your attention to be focused inward first, before you focus your comments outward. Why?

Because… If you want to have fewer “opportunities” to be critical, you first have to let go of being so ready to criticize as a way of BEing. Then you can more readily come up with creative, constructive ideas about what to do or say, or how to understand something or someone better—especially you.

At times we do one or more silent run-throughs of something that ticks us off. I caught (still catch) myself doing this (I’m improving), and it is NOT the vibrational energy I want to transmit and attract more of. I wanted a way to stop it—fast! So an inspired idea came to me and I put it into practice. It’s something I forgot I learned around 17 years ago: I make the OM sound, several times if needed, to immediately shift myself out of such mind chatter. When I first started this, I did it for about a week before recalling where it came from: Wayne Dyer’s meditation CD (released in 1995) that uses the AH sound for creation and the OM sound for appreciation. My inner guidance (and subconscious memory) knew what it was doing, even if “I” didn’t, because…

Appreciation is one of the highest vibrational frequencies, one worth transmitting as much of the time as we can. It’s far more Law-of-Attraction favorable than satisfying the ego by complaining to the point where it begins to impact us negatively. Sometimes we just need to vent, but we also can overdo it and move beyond venting into gritching. (Feel free to replace the “gr” with a “b”.)

Sometimes we criticize or condemn before anything actually happens. We anticipate something unpleasant ahead of time—to (ugh!) prepare ourselves to “receive” what we anticipate. Train yourself to expect something good to happen, or to release unfavorable expectations, until you can shift into expecting something better, if your usual practice is to expect something bad before anything happens at all. “What we expect, that we find.” (Aristotle) Ernest Holmes would add, “Merely to abstain from wrong thinking is not enough; there must be active right thinking.”

You want to do what you can to ease up on a tendency to criticize so quickly. Otherwise, you’ll launch into criticism automatically—and keep at it!—which gets transmitted outward. Then, Law of Attraction will send you more reasons to be critical about life, others, or you. And, you’ll wonder how you can ever get off this (self) frustrating loop.

Along with easing up on criticism, another (foundational) way to be happier more consistently is to find and feel your joy in and from Source, not in and from your circumstances. Circumstances are ever-changing—because life and you are ever-evolving. There WILL be times when you wait for what you want, though you can shorten the wait by keeping your vibration higher. If you can’t be happy when you don’t have what you want, you won’t be happy when you do have what you want. Ouch!

Each of us can choose to be in battle (inner or outer) all or most of the time, or in joy and happiness as much as possible. It’s up to us to decide which to put into consistent or better practice: criticize or observe, judge or discern, feel frequent frustration or know everything has a reason and a season, anger or awareness, control or creativity.

What we choose results in our unhappiness or happiness. Conscious choice is a good practice. It’s also good practice not to expect to get this completely correct consistently right from the start. Find a better thought or feeling and choose to increase it. Allow this to be gradual, like moving up a scale on a piano or the way mercury moves upward on a temperature gauge. Tone down criticism and you’ll feel and see improvements. Then tone it down even more so you can attract what you really want more of… to feel happier. Use the fact of Law of Attraction as your motivator.

Practice makes progress.
© Joyce Shafer

Do You Easily Conceive of Your Wants and Dreams as Possible?

You want something, a lot! But, do you really believe it can happen? To use Law of Attraction in your favor, you must.

“Man’s conscious thought, acting through Law, may change any condition in his experience, provided he can clearly conceive of such conditions being changed,” wrote Ernest Holmes.

When you read what Holmes wrote, what got your attention most? For me, it’s the segment, “…provided he can clearly conceive of such conditions being changed.” Are you aware of the difference between desiring a particular change for the better, even working for it, and being able to believe without doubt it can happen—or that you deserve it or something even better? Think of something in your life you desire to be improved. Are all or most of your thoughts aligned with, “Yes, that can be mine!”—or not? I offer a clever, accurate image to help you with this in just a bit.

Do you ever catch yourself running a movie in your mind about what you don’t want instead of what you do? If yes, I bet you can get the details going in that image, right down to dialogue. Even though you have a theme playing in that movie, your thoughts are likely swarm-like: “Bees” from the past, present, and future buzz in your mind all at once. All this mental activity may even make you feel like you’re being productive. If this was productive, things would be improved… Wouldn’t they?

What if all that mental activity happens because you can’t (yet) CLEARLY CONCEIVE of the improved condition happening—for you? If the image you hold about What Is contrasts with the one you want as your experience, which one will win? If you know anything about Law of Attraction, you know the answer. So, what can you do?

I think we should not try to control our thoughts. That’s too much like trying to corral a swarm of bees. However, what we can do is choose the thoughts that help us have the vibrational frequency we prefer. By vibrational frequency, I mean how you want to feel. Then, it becomes vitally important that you feel as much of that right now and as often as possible.

What often blocks us about choosing a preferred feeling—and to feel as much of it as we can right now—is we get caught on the How, how what we want can happen based on what we see, and based on how we feel about what we see.

I heard a perfect way to align with the How described. It’s a method I’ve used, but not with the same clear mental image as this one is: Imagine a radar screen that’s three inches in diameter. That small screen is how we view what is and what we’ve known. But, what REALLY is and is possible expands far, far beyond what’s just on our screen, and expands in all directions. What’s outside our limited view is all the additional ways Source and the Law can manifest or bring together what’s needed to manifest the improvement or something even better. The great question of How, more often than not, gets answered OFF your radar screen. Please really think about what this means, and even recall one or more times this was evident… because if it happened then, it’ll happen again… and again.

But, what about how well you can conceive of the condition improving the way you desire it to? Maybe when you think of the desired change, your image of or mental movie about that experience doesn’t have as many (believable) details as the one you have about what you don’t want. You may have noticed you can’t force yourself to believe something, even something you really want to believe. But you can seek and find a point of alignment that gets you there or at least puts your feet on the path.

If conceiving the improvement as yours is an issue, find a thought that aligns with what you ultimately want like, “The highest good for me and all involved,” or feel true appreciation for all you have and/or all that IS possible. This is actually a better start than it may seem. What you want to find is a better vibration to transmit. And, yes, the more you align with and match how having your desire FEELS, the stronger your transmission is. As you build your createability-with-your-feelings-and-thoughts skills, this is a way to help keep the clutter out of your mental space and vibrational frequency because your vibrational transmission is your command.

Sometimes, being specific about what you want is helpful. Many or most times your desired way to feel is all you need to transmit as a vibration. Source knows what you need and want and awaits your feelings (your vibration) to match the vibration of what you desire…because the matching, according to the Law, is what brings the energy into form (manifestation).

If you cannot conceive of your desires as yours (yet), you can put your feet on these stepping stones. You can remind yourself that, “Okay, maybe I don’t know how or when, nor do I have to. I only know this process works, and usually outside what I see in front of me.” It helps, as I mentioned, if you’re conscious of times when this or something similar has been your experience and the results delighted or even surprised you.

You can also assist this by noticing if—or when—the majority of your thoughts are on what you don’t want, don’t want more of, want to stop, don’t like, don’t appreciate, worry about or fear—and shift to the FEELING you do want, whether that shift causes a nearly blissful vibration or just a better one than you had. Thankfully, you have what Abraham-Hicks calls a buffer of time, to adjust your thoughts and, therefore, your vibrations. But, you want to get out of the practice of “relying” on that buffer too much and into the practice of transmitting vibrations that match (align with) the feelings you really want. Feel them now instead of waiting. The goal is to consciously, deliberately (even joyfully) stop opposing yourself and your “Stream of Well-Being” and to expand your awareness of how everything works in tandem with everything else.

It seems a good time for all of us to reframe what Law of Attraction is: Law of Attraction is not as much about techniques for getting what you want as it is a guide about how to be and live.

Practice makes progress.
© Joyce Shafer

Do You Really Want to KNOW the Truth of Law of Attraction?

To really KNOW is to be in direct, even intimate relationship. Do you truly desire to have this with the Truth of Source and the Law of Attraction?

It’s tempting to be aware of this information, talk about it, wish about it yet never KNOW it to the point of living it. It seems so much easier this way than doing what might be required of us, but ultimately our experience is the opposite; life can feel more difficult and even chaotic without it.

All knowing starts with thought. Our conscious thoughts are what go into our subconscious memory bank. This means any thought in our subconscious can be changed by our conscious (deliberate) thought. The most direct method to do this, according to Ernest Holmes, is to KNOW we did not inherit spiritual limitations in any form. Learned and inherited them from others—yes; inherited them from Source—no. This means we can choose to step away from limiting beliefs we have, we can step away from limiting beliefs our families, friends, education systems, religions, races, cultures, and society have. This is only one step toward the Truth, and one that may take time, but it’s worth it.

Your thoughts become YOUR law, and the Law of Attraction matches them, however long it takes. The degree your subconscious thoughts are united with the Truth of Law of Attraction is the same degree you use it In Unity… meaning deliberately in your favor and based in the Truth.

“To learn how to think is to learn how to live,” wrote Holmes. “This is not done by holding thoughts, but by knowing the Truth.” Holding thought is the same as wishing or hoping, which is very different from knowing and being unified with the Truth. However, this is often the first way we begin to move along this path; but our goal is to KNOW and be in unity with the Truth. We learn the Truth through what we read or hear about it, but we come to know it through observation and practice.

Your sustained or prevalent emotions—in each moment—reveal your relationship with the Truth of Source and Law of Attraction—in each moment. This is why choosing to feel good or better is so important. This is easier to do when you know and trust the Truth of Source and Law of Attraction, and not based on your perceptions about how circumstances appear to be.

The thoughts you choose put you into or out of alignment with the Truth. Alignment results in the feelings you desire; misalignment results in the feelings you don’t want. Either of these ways of feeling produces outcomes and experiences that give you more of what you feel. Something I do when I notice I don’t feel the way I want to—have a feeling I don’t want to have as my vibration that gets matched (and choose to stop myself from doing this)—is to pull up a positive memory of genuine appreciation, one with no negatives attached to it. I match my vibration to that memory, and this causes me to recall that time as a blessing, to FEEL that blessing, which re-minds me there are many, many times to appreciate, possibly even to consider everything a blessing or worthy of appreciation, even if it’s not quite yet apparent.

If you feel negative, recognize you’re out of alignment with Source, Truth, and the Law; and that you can anticipate or expect to experience some or all of the results of this misalignment of your vibration with what you desire to feel. At the time you recognize this, it is YOUR choice to continue down that path—as Abraham-Hicks says, to “go against the stream of your well-being,” or to shift this so you’re back into flowing with it. Again, this is more easily, and deliberately, done when you know and identify with the Truth of Source and Law of Attraction.

This Spiritual Realization leads you to discern rather than decide based on emotional reactions; and to understand the TRUTH is that Source has divine wisdom applied to a divine evolving plan, and applies it in your favor despite some appearances. But, you are part of this evolution, so you can influence how smooth or rough your inner experiences are.

It also means you realize Source fulfills your feeling-based thoughts as requests—according to the Law put in place for you; and allows leeway for your thinking to guide you to empowered, enlightened relationship with the Truth of Source and the Law. This practice shortens the gap between an event and your choices that follow, as well as your choices before events, and about how to be, do, and have what you choose at the inner level, which eventually shows up in the outer one. Each time you have a realization, you KNOW a bit more. As you practice you’ll gain knowing; so, you’ll have a mix of current beliefs and knowing operating simultaneously. But, any KNOWING can help you during times when your beliefs take you away from well-being.

You can’t look at what others do who are not in relationship with the Truth, follow their example, and expect the results you desire—that is, how you desire to feel. This means you sometimes have to stand alone in the physical world, though never spiritually: Source is always with you. Nor do you have to talk about this with others in an infringing way, especially to bolster your belief… or theirs. Sometimes you have to practice Silent Power, and speak about your process only if others ask why you’re able to be calmer and happier no matter what appearances may be. Just be aware that not many will ask. They may even think something is wrong or off with you.

Knowing the Truth of Source and Law of Attraction doesn’t mean a completely “problem”-free life; though, you’ll likely, eventually, interpret “problems” differently, begin to notice that everything is a puzzle piece moving and fitting into position. It does mean deliberate choice of serenity and joy instead of inner turmoil. It means understanding you have create-ability, as well as a reNEWed responsibility over your choices. It means willingness to give up attachment to lack, self-doubt, worry, and any other belief and feeling that’s opposite of the stream of well-being… accomplished over time, as you grow into your knowing. This is part of your individualized evolution within the larger one you play a part in.

What are you doing to KNOW—be in an intimate relationship with—the Truth better, to trust it… to live it? No one can do it for you, only you. And you are fully equipped to do so, as soon as you allow yourself to do so. And allow that this will more likely unfold over time rather than burst into being… though, that could happen.

Practice makes progress.
© Joyce Shafer

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The Uncomfortable Law of Attraction Truth

Has your experience of using the Law of Attraction felt challenging or impossible? Maybe one particularly important truth hasn’t been clearly understood.

When you first learned about Law of Attraction, perhaps you felt excited about what this could mean for you, and you just had to know more. Then the bloom kind of left the rose when you learned that you’re already using it, because it’s a law of the Universe, like gravity is a law on our planet.

Perhaps your original hope was that you’d learn tools or tricks; in other words, you’d learn how to easily use this Law to easily change your life. Perhaps you didn’t expect that to use the Law deliberately in your favor, you’d have to change, as well; and that was uncomfortable for you. It may have felt uncomfortable to learn that if you observed your experiences and linked them to your feeling-based thoughts, past or present, and your thoughts to specific and even seemingly unrelated events, you’d see how you use Law of Attraction all the time, how you affect your experiences all the time.

Maybe you felt or feel about this as you do a car: you just want to drive it, not understand the mechanics of how and why it works. In some respects about this, you are completely right: you can know how it works or not—it will still work, but you BELIEVE a car will work… as long as everything required is in place. Everything IS in place regarding Law of Attraction, except, perhaps, your willingness to adjust in ways that make it work in your favor.

Earl Nightengale said, “You become (and get) what you think about most of the time.” Ernest Holmes wrote, “If man takes his images of thought only from his previous experiences, then he continues in the bondage which those previous experiences create. If we talk about discord, we shall become more discordant…. People who spend all their time talking about their unhappiness become more unhappy.” What do you think about, or how do your feeling-based thoughts run… most of the time?

It may seem too simplistic that how we use our thoughts and feelings—most especially how we feel—has this much bearing on our results and experiences, but they do. It’s a vital part of the Law, like gravity. However, large jets can fly. They defy gravity through the law of lift. You can defy the gravity of how you feel by choosing to lift how you feel, to feel even just a little better, until you can connect with or allow yourself to feel good or really good. This is so important for you to get, because like always attracts like. Always.

Let’s say there’s something you want. You can’t desire something AND doubt it can or will be yours. You also cannot focus on its absence, because… like always attracts like.

One LOA approach would be to complain to others and think, most of the time, about how and why what you want isn’t happening. This is the vibrational frequency you transmit and that gets matched. As it continues to not happen, your feeling-based thoughts increase in intensity and frequency. You dwell on this as though obsessed. Your wanting something but not allowing it, which is what this approach does, gets matched to the vibration of not allowing, and what you want stays just out of your reach.

The other approach would be to hold feelings of appreciation for what you have now and how good you’ll feel when you get what you desire, but feeling as much of that right now as you can, and expanding this feeling. You hold the thought, “I don’t know when or how it’ll happen; I only know it or something even better will.” Every day and often during the day, you hold this thought and the good or even-better feeling. The vibrational energy of that feeling is transmitted by you, picked up by the creative field and others, and gets matched, which pulls an experience to you… that matches the desired FEELING you’ve transmitted. This is why sometimes results are even better than you asked for.

Abraham-Hicks said, “…come to understand [that] to the degree you feel blessed and expect good things to flow to you, this indicates the level of your state of allowing; and to the degree that you do not feel blessed, where you do not expect good things to come to you, this indicates your degree of resistance.” Blessed, here, means you understand that nothing in your favor is ever withheld from you unless you hold it back from coming to you.

This is important: Your desire and your belief that you will receive your desire must match vibrationally. If your belief is lower, you need to look at this and ask what might have to happen to have them be equal. Maybe you need to work towards your desire in steps or stages because you find that your belief about accomplishing or receiving the first step or stage is more aligned than focusing on the end result. So, either adjust your desire or adjust your belief, initially, and look for what it takes within you to increase your belief. But, they must match.

In the second LOA approach described above, there’s a clear desire based on how you wish or choose to feel (really good, and always, ultimately what you really want anyway); belief it will happen (you have no doubt nor are you focused on the present, temporary absence of what you want); you aren’t struggling with how it will happen or contriving ways to make it happen; and you aren’t concerned about when it will happen. This puts the how and the when in the hands of the Universe, where it is anyway. What the Universe wants to feel from you is your Why. Why do you want what you say you do? You could travel through layers and layers of whys, but the final one is always about how you want to feel. Law of Attraction is clear: feel as much of that feeling as you can right now. If and when action is required on your part, you’ll know; and you’ll feel good or aligned about taking it.

Making these changes in yourself and your approach doesn’t have to be hard work. But, how easy is it for you right now to use your thoughts and feelings as described in the second LOA approach? Any time you learn a new skill, it takes consistent practice—practice doing it the right way—for it to become second nature for you. You can’t cross the finish line without first running the race, so to speak. You can’t be a master at this unless you first learn what this requires of you and put it into consistent practice.

One of the most important things to keep in mind is that you are a transmitter of your own vibrations, as well as a receiver. Every single one of your 10,000-a-day thoughts is a vibration received by the creative field and others, and gets matched in some way and in some measure. Your predominant attitude is your dominant vibration. Like attracts like; always. If you criticize or worry, you get more reasons to be critical or worried sent your way. If you appreciate, especially deeply, and especially if you relax your energy and release attachments to how and when—while allowing that if what you want is in your highest good, it’s yours and will show up on time—you get more to appreciate sent to you. It’s the Law; and it’s always at work in your life.

It’s, likely, not the truth of the Law that’s uncomfortable, but the truth of what you need to change within that is… not that others have to change, not that the economy has to change… but how your use of your own thoughts and feelings as integral creative contributors to your experiences have to change—that is, have to align with the feeling you want. Give it time and consistent practice. You will improve. And, you’ll be learning even more, for as long as you live. Law of Attraction is not a tool; it’s a way of life.

Practice makes progress.
© Joyce Shafer

Have You Thanked Your Money Today?

“It’s better to light a candle than curse the darkness.” Great quote, but what does it have to do with thanking your money?

A while back I published an article titled “Set Them Free.” In it I wrote, “How can you expect your relationship with her to be anything other than what it’s been as long as you have her fixed in your mind as capable of only certain behaviors?”

I didn’t then envision the person the way I’d like her to be, I chose to just let her be…that is, be who she is. After all, she could surprise me in remarkable, positive ways; and indeed, since I made that choice, this person has. This also freed me to reflect on and appreciate all of the good moments we’ve shared during the years, and there have been many. Every time a good memory flashes in my mind, I give her a quiet, heartfelt Thank You.

It occurs to me we can do this with money as well. We can recognize that money is actually a form of energy we exchange; and though we enjoy it, use it, and seem to usually want more of it, we may never actually thank it for all it’s done and does for us. Sometimes we treat it like the quote and curse it (in a manner of speaking) however it shows up in our lives—generally by wanting more but holding a negative expectation of it showing up in the way we’d like. Better to light an inner candle to illuminate ourselves differently about it.

Try this: deliberately pull up money memories that are goods ones: A purchase that either made you feel really good or served a purpose; a gift chosen carefully, knowing how delighted the recipient would be; an enjoyable dining experience or form of entertainment; a donation that really made a difference; and of course the everyday exchanges that help us move through life. Take a moment to thank money for making these things possible since money exchange is what we use in our 3-D world.

Thank it for showing up consistently or as a surprise, in expected and unexpected amounts (including coins on the ground that I hope you pick up and then affirm abundance). Thank it for helping you learn a good deal about yourself and others. Apologize for ever restricting it because of learned negative or limiting beliefs.

Is it time for you to set money free from “behaviors” based on your beliefs and limited expectations? Start by genuinely feeling core-level appreciation for what it’s done, does, and will do to enhance your life experience.

You are what you practice.

Is Being Open to Receive Hard Work for You?

There’s a contrast in the idea that you have to work at allowing yourself to be open to receive what you desire. Without meaning to, you block or delay receiving if you “work” at allowing it.

A reader of my article, “The Give and Receive Confusion,” contacted me to say how much she resonated with the message and that she was working on allowing herself to receive, that she affirms often that she is open to receiving. I’m grateful she contacted me because it inspired me to revisit this.

You may think allowing yourself to be open to receive is about getting the desired outcome, but it is, in reality, more about how you explore and expand your Self Awareness and Attention through the dynamics or process of what it means to be open to receive—which can be either a smaller or larger “conversation” you have at the inner (and outer) level.

Let’s look at an example. Let’s say you have a particular expense you need to take care of and the money, anticipated or not, comes in (or is in your account) to help you meet it. There may be more than the two ways you can feel about this than will be considered here—but, how you feel is absolutely important to the experience before, during, and after.

One way might be to think, “Isn’t this just how it always seems to happen? Look at this money that came to me. I could really use it in so many ways—I could be ahead for once; but instead, I have to give it over to this expense. And then I’ll be back where I started or even behind. I can’t catch a break when it comes to money. As fast as it comes in, it goes out.”

Another way might be, “How perfect that I received what I needed when I needed it to take care of this! And, if it happened this time, it can happen again and again—after all, it really has happened before. I love how I feel about this. It definitely feels like my need was anticipated, (maybe) even before the need showed up; and, I’m able to meet it, even though for a while, I wondered how I’d be able to. It comes in so it can go out, which is the point of energy exchange, the give-and-receive circulation. It allows me to express appreciation for products and services. It even allows me to express appreciation that I appreciate this. And the more I appreciate, the more I receive to appreciate.”

If you notice you work on allowing yourself to receive—either in specific instances or nearly all the time, you want to put your attention on why you doubt this. If you’re open to allowing yourself to receive what’s in your best interest, you know it (best interest means whatever helps you grow and expand your attention and awareness, and supports self-empowerment in all areas of your life—received in its right time). If you feel a need to work at it, another conversation is going on and you want to listen in.

Effortless allowing walks hand in hand with genuine appreciation—and here’s the “tricky” part—for everything that comes to you. Such appreciation comes from a deeper understanding that a “bigger tapestry” is being woven all the time, and it’s never just about particular “threads.” Know that if you haven’t been living this all along, it’s beneficial if you allow this to open in your life in right timing, usually aligned with how and when you integrate this, and may be a step-by-step process instead of an “instant” flip. Small improvements are powerful. You learned the alphabet and small words first; then expanded your ability to read and use language to your advantage. The more you read, the better you get at it.

If you feel blocked or challenged about allowing yourself to receive, you are engaging a level of poverty consciousness. This may or may not be obvious to you; but it is a form of anti-prosperity thinking. And, it’s not just about your bank account; it likely touches more than one, if not every area of your life to some degree. This includes how you perceive yourself, others, and your life experiences. And, you may not have money issues, but block receiving your good in other areas of your life.

If you don’t feel enriched in a particular area of your life, you know it’s because you “affirm” that you aren’t, which creates more of the same. And, each experience brought about through this feeling-thinking asks for you to feel and think what WILL allow desired results. If you by-pass the programmed habit to self-judge, you can move forward faster.

Allowing yourself to receive is meant to be as natural as breathing—done without effort, without reminding yourself to inhale and exhale. What messes with this is all those limiting beliefs heaped on us and that we hold onto. This is influenced by outside opinions that say our lives have to look a certain way or we’re failures. That’s a “store” you might want to stop shopping in.

What if the way to remind yourself of the truth of your true inner power is a matter of putting your attention on what does and doesn’t support this truth? This means feelings, thoughts, beliefs, actions, and particularly self-talk and even what you say to others. Our “struggles” are more often caused by our doing what doesn’t work rather than doing what does. We may even feel too busy or frustrated to pause and look at this.

We also feel a contrast with being one with allowing ourselves to receive because of the “work hard” model vs. the “live on purpose” model. We carry this “work hard” mentality into everything we do—you have to work hard to succeed in business, finances, relationships, and the like. And, this is in direct contrast to a desire and even an inner knowing that being in flow and following inspirations is where the experiences and the joy we desire occur—in the way we know they can. There is a difference in taking actions that work and being aligned with and passionate about this vs. what we typically assume working hard means—it usually means we do a lot of busywork and worrying rather than what produces desired results and experiences.

Another contrast is that even if we’ve experienced that not everything we ask for is in our best interest or aligned with our life purpose, there is a philosophy that says if we do “this thing,” we can have everything we ask for—that if we don’t have everything we ask for, we’re not doing what we’re supposed to. Maybe what’s “wrong” is our believing the last part of that philosophy—that we’re supposed to be able to have/create/manifest everything we ask for—rather than questioning whether or not it strengthens our ability to connect with our inner power or makes us feel disconnected, less, or lacking. This causes you to try to measure up to expectations of others rather than attune to and tune up why you’re here, which is for your own soul purpose. The threads weave the tapestry, but it’s about the tapestry.

The belief that you lack inner power—or use of it—causes you to believe there’s something you need—rather than allowing that you have what you need, but it’s likely buried under beliefs and self-doubt.

This conversation can be paralleled to losing weight by dieting (losing old beliefs rather focusing on better ones). You can either view it from the perspective of the harder challenges that usually go with this process—what stands in the way of your desired result (often about what you have to give up), or a matter of doing what works to help you feel healthy, strong, happy with yourself, and fulfilled. The typical approach causes you to focus on what you believe you have to lose rather than on what you desire to gain.

You can expand how you allow yourself to receive if you pay attention to when you do anything that’s opposite that natural state—and let go of your attachment to it. Awareness of this will do more to get you on track faster than most techniques.
***
I invite you to visit this week's issue of my newsletter at http://stateofappreciation.webs.com

Guest Article: Unwrap the Unimaginable Gift by Guy Finley

Empowerment Extras:
-Find out how to get Discovering Your Life Purpose free
-Reinvent Yourself ~ Start with where and who you are and expand this!
-Guy Finley’s profound (free) 6-minute audio message about meditation and attention
-Watch what happens before a water drop creates a ripple ~ a real surprise!
-Bill Harris of Centerpointe provides a free 28-minute audio well worth a listen, especially on how to deal with what triggers you
-Journal Your Way to Clarity and Creativity – Cindie Wilding
-Personal Life Readings by Leeya Brooke Thompson, author of The Wisdom of Sound and Number: Phonetic Chaldean Numerology
-Free Empowerment eBooks from Joyce Shafer (by various authors)

Has Approval Been Your “Currency” Exchange in Life, Business, and Relationships?

All the strategies, systems, programs, books you’ve invested in that haven’t shifted your prosperity or life experience may have missed one key point. You may not realize approval, rather than value-for-value, is your imprinted “currency” exchange.

Expectations and limiting beliefs introduced to us in early years become invisible residents in our non-physical “bones.” They also morph—change form and function—as we grow into adults.

When we’re children and we experience events we feel are unfair or limiting, we tell ourselves as soon as we’re adults we’ll never allow those things to happen again. Only, that isn’t what usually happens. What happens is we find subtle ways to repeat them—at least, the underlying theme of them. We are drawn to and draw to us people and situations that make sure these patterns are repeated. Because that’s exactly what they are—patterns. And, they are familiar.

“People-pleaser” is a term known by many, and lived by many. People-pleasers are not born, they are created. It’s natural to want approval; it’s the out-of-balance reason for wanting it—and needing it in an unhealthy quantity—that can turn life into a hamster-wheel experience rather than a joyful, fulfilling one.

If any aspect of your formative years imprinted you with the belief that you were not good enough as you are and as you were becoming, you may have chosen one of these two paths: a consistent exhausting, frustrating effort to win approval or you gave up trying and resolved to do only what you had to do to survive—you decided to settle for less in every area of your life. Maybe you even merged the two.

An out-of-balance need for approval can manifest as perfectionism, procrastination, lack of belief in self, self-sabotage, fear of following your dreams, and even fear of naming your dreams—especially if your dreams might not win approval you seek from one or more individuals. Add some of the negative prosperity beliefs such as some are lucky, some are not; the only way you can succeed is if you work really hard (ask any hard-working minimum wagers and struggling solo business people if this has proven true); you either have what it takes or you don’t . . . I’m sure you can add to this list.

Only you can know if you have a deep need for approval and how this impacts your life. If your primary need has been for approval, you’ve seen it affect the jobs and wages you’ve accepted; the relationships you’ve engaged in (likely, longer than you should have); lack of energy or self-confidence to go after what you really want in every area or several areas of your life; and, often, the various forms of abuses and self-abuse you’ve allowed.

If you’re a solo business person (or want to be), fear energy about charging a fair fee or price for what you provide, and getting it, may be present—you doubt your right and ability to be compensated appropriately. You may engage in lots of activity, but little productivity. You may search for ways to succeed rather than create them.

Approval seekers are often not connected to self-esteem, self-confidence, self-worth, and self-appreciation in ways that support them to feel how they wish to about themselves, or to make choices that help them create desired experiences and outcomes. Self-trust to know and act on what is appropriate for them (and what’s not) has not been developed as it might have been. Fear of making mistakes shadows them. They may not even ask what their desired experiences are—not with true clarity.

If what you need and want in order to have the life experience you desire comes last (or even second), your “currency” may be approval. You may want approval more than value-for-value in your personal and professional life. This is about proper self-respect, not improper selfishness.

When approval is your currency, your inner images are so entwined with this need you don’t even enter into the space where you envision people, who really feel you can make a difference, being happy to make a monetary exchange with you. You don’t envision being able to discern early on if a person is the right person for you to be in a relationship with—that the exchange and value in any experience is equal and in your best interest. You second-guess yourself on a consistent basis.

Take some time to sit with what you’ve read here. See if the out-of-balance need for approval has been a driving force in your life. Ask yourself how this has manifested in your experiences and how you feel about this.

Then, do a quick replay of your life and re-write the “film script.” Allow the image of receiving the approval you desired. Watch as you honor yourself by saying no to inappropriate personal and professional relationships when you said yes instead—making better choices on your behalf in certain moments.

Envision and feel the satisfaction of providing the service you’re passionate about to those you’d enjoy engaging with (even if what that is isn’t clear at this time). Let who, how, where, when, and for how much play out in your favor. Imagine the feeling of it—and you—as you truly desire. Allow yourself to feel this as true for you, even if that feeling is somewhat small right now. It can expand as you become gradually more comfortable with it. It may be unfamiliar, but it doesn’t need to stay that way.

Starting now, allow yourself to recognize when approval is your currency, as you consider important life choices. If it is, realize it’s you who will pay for the experiences and outcomes that result. This only empties the “well.” You want to fill it.

It’s time to shift this so that “give and receive” become the energy exchange they are meant to be and that feel good for you and others. It’s time to stop believing the stories you tell yourself, especially because a better story could have happened. It still can; but you need to begin to rewrite your story now and place your focus on it, and stop repeating the old ones.

It’s time to upgrade your “currency” exchange, and to understand it is your right to give and receive in equal measure.

Is it time to learn how to more effortlessly have desired experiences in life and business? Start now to re-write your stories for a More Calm, Confident, Creative You with You Are More! Empowerment Coach and author Joyce Shafer(jls1422@yahoo.com)—Sign up now for the 4-week Valentine’s Coaching Special (sign-up deadline is Feb. 14/program starts when you sign up) or let the e-book guide you. Fall in Love with Your Life! Details at http://tinyurl.com/yljhw4b