The Money Energy Virus

In most cultures around the world, there is a LOT of energy when it comes to the topic of money, much of it not very positive. Maybe we need to look at this.

What are your thoughts when you hand over money in exchange for goods or services, or even as gifts? By money I mean the paper version, coins, checks, even debit and credit cards and automatic payments, which you see registered on your account status. What if the money you touched, whatever its form, carried the energy to you of the person who touched it last, or it carried the energy of every person who ever touched it? This could apply to the keypad you use for debit card transactions, or the pen you use to sign a check or credit card voucher, or your own keyboard or whatever technology you use to check your account transactions. What energy would you prefer be transferred to you? What energy do you transfer?

Think this is airy-fairy nonsense? There’s a branch of paranormal science called psychometry, where you hold or touch an object and pick up information from it, including about the person who held it or carried it or had it last, and sometimes farther back than that. You can research this online or find books about it, if you’re unfamiliar with it.

Everything is energy (we can no longer deny this), so it shouldn’t be a surprise to us to realize we pick up on the energy around us all the time, as well as imprint our own energy wherever we are. You’ve perhaps even felt this when you’ve walked into a room and felt inclined to say, “The energy in the room was so thick you could cut it with a knife.” Maybe certain places make you uncomfortable. You may think it’s because it’s a hospital or whatever, and maybe that’s accurate for your own reasons, but maybe it’s about more than that. We’re used to being aware of energy in some instances, but not in others, but it doesn’t mean energy isn’t everywhere, or that we can perceive some forms of energy but not others. We may not translate or “read” what we pick up energy-wise, but we do receive it.

I mentioned the money-energy virus in the title. I won’t look up a formal definition of what a virus is, because you’ve possibly experienced one health-wise or know someone who has, and because in this computerized world, we understand what it can mean for a computer to get one, or what it means for a video to go viral, as well as how quickly that can happen. The parallels to money energy are there in that what we touch gets imbued with our energy imprint and gets passed on. This can also apply to anything we touch: food we prepare or others prepare for us, apparel we buy or give or sell, each other, and so on.

Again, this is not as strange as it may sound. And it’s akin to what we’ve learned about organ transplants. Organ recipients take on personality traits of the donors. Not necessarily all the traits, but some, for sure. There are years of research and a number of books about this energy transference. It’s quite stunning, to say the least.

Energy leaves traces. This is why you might go from feeling content to feeling uncomfortable when you sit in a particular chair or seat on a bus or subway or bench, or why your energy may drop (or raise) when you enter a store or other public place. You might begin to wonder why your mood shifted suddenly and what caused the shift. And, of course, energy doesn’t work only in the negative. It most definitely works in the positive as well, which is why you can be in a bad mood and feel better or happier once someone in a good mood (good energy vibrations) enters the room or calls or e-mails you.

Thinking about this brought to mind the movie Monsters, Inc., where monsters pop out of children’s closets at night so the screams can be captured and used as fuel, like we use electricity. Things change when it’s discovered that children’s laughter creates even more energy than their screams. Plus, everyone has a much happier experience of life when laughter instead of fear is engaged.

We sometimes wonder about the attitudes of so many, as well as our own, that include fear, frustration, depression, lack of inspiration, lack of joy, scarcity, and so on. What if we’re transferring those energies to each other in a viral kind of way, including through what we touch, especially money, which has such an energetic charge throughout our cultural mindsets? Maybe we should wonder how we can spread more love, serenity, and consciousness, even if we don’t say a word about what we’re doing.

Maybe we can (and should) spread love, care, appreciation, financial and other forms of serenity, joy, blessings, and lots of good things, by putting those thought energies into whatever we touch, particularly money, rather than the thought energies we sometimes put into them. Now that’s the kind of energy, for the highest good of all, to make viral. And think of what it will do for you and your mindset and well-being, as well. It’s a good practice, one you’ll appreciate.   

Practice makes progress.

© Joyce Shafer

You Are Not Your Thoughts

Of the many thoughts you have each day, how many help you, how many hinder you? You can shift this in your favor.

This article may seem like some pretty heavy stuff for some, or stronger than I usually write, but I ask you to stick with me all the way to the end. Thoughts happen. They are like the stock exchange’s fast-moving digital tickertape, but much, much faster. But there are the thoughts and there is the YOU, the “consciousness” receiver of the thoughts. When you can distinguish between the two or remind yourself to do this, you begin to release yourself from being a prisoner of your thoughts. If or whenever this seems a challenge, just remind yourself that inside of a prison is constraint; outside of it is flow and autonomy.

There is a real YOU—the infinite consciousness that you are—that is not your body, your mind, or your emotions, as strange as that may seem. The “you” having the life experience provides information to your brain based on external stimuli because YOU are here in a body having experiences that use the fives senses to do so. But you are always, always more than that. When you have that feeling that says, “I know I’m more than this,” you’re right!

Life feels difficult and perplexing at times, or a good deal of the time, because you’ve believed the five-sense “you” is the real one, as well as everything the five senses input into your brain, which your brain then decodes to make some sense of that information so you can interpret “reality”. The sense we make of the information is more often than not colored by our beliefs and our conditioning because the brain filters signals we receive about “reality” to fit our beliefs. Sir Francis Bacon said: “The world is not to be narrowed till it will go into the understanding…but the understanding to be expanded and opened till it can take in the image of the world as it is in fact.” 

You want to look at what you believe and who you believe it for. If it isn’t for YOU, you want to look at that as well. You see, restrictive beliefs result in a restrictive experience of “reality”, rather than a big-picture, holistic one. Restrictive beliefs, especially rigid ones, suppress our ability to open and expand consciousness. As we expand our consciousness (actually, lift the veil hiding our consciousness from us), we expand how our brain decodes information it receives; we discern differently because we have more information and an improved means to process it. We and how we experience life expands. That’s the only direction we and life can go in once we re-mind ourselves to expand our consciousness. You can have something of an experience of who the real YOU is if you watch Jill Bolte Taylor’s TED.com video about her Stroke of Insight, where she had a direct experience of full consciousness as one with All There Is compared to the I-am-Jill’s mind and separate, when she had a stroke that closed off her ability to interpret, in the standard manner, the signals her brain received about the world around her.

The five-sense “you” relies on those senses to navigate the life experience. YOU use the five senses but you have a sixth sense (maybe more) called intuition, or inner knowing. Intuition (inner knowing) is not an anomaly just for some. We all have it. I learned this as a fact when I went through the Silva Mind Method training a few decades ago. Even the strongest disbelievers in the class performed, as we had to, to graduate.

Intuition, or inner knowing, is one way we plug into the infinite consciousness we are and are a part of. The esoteric ones of old, and a number of our contemporaries, knew and know this. We may not be brought up to know this about ourselves, we may even be told it’s a “sin” to use this part of our true nature, but it’s still there for us, ready to assist our navigation through life in ways we desire but don’t necessarily feel skilled at using. But we can put it into practice.

Your five senses can cause you to believe the “matrix” is real, that what the senses perceive is all there is, which is quite different from the real All There Is—the One Source, which is limitless in what it can supply and provide for you, and does. The interesting thing about this is that quantum mechanics has proven that nothing, no thing, is there. The only thing there or here is the consciousness creating the appearance of reality, which is a pretty impressive hologram, so impressive that we can literally bump our heads on it. Ernest Homes wrote, “Nothing moves but mind.” He wrote this quite a while before quantum mechanics caught up with this as a fact.

This is an extraordinarily challenging truth for most of us to believe, much less grasp, because though true, it’s contrary to what most believe because of what we were taught and are still being taught, despite the empirical evidence (and ancient knowing). Humans managed to accept that Earth wasn’t the center of the universe and was round, not flat (once they knew they wouldn’t be punished or worse for believing that, and once those in authority could no longer get away with insisting it was flat, etc.). But this fact about reality we’re looking at here is a bit harder to wrap the mind around because we’ve believed the opposite for so long and because of how effective the physics of it all is, as well as what we’re told “reality” is.

When thoughts happen, someone—in your case YOU—is there to notice them. When a person’s body stops, their infinite consciousness departs the body suit but doesn’t cease to exist. This is evidenced by out-of-body experiences, near-death experiences, and more. Even though we know of these experiences or know people who’ve had them, or have had them ourselves, we still don’t necessarily integrate the full meaning for us into our daily lives.

Many of us who’ve been on the spiritual or metaphysical path say we believe we’re infinite consciousness. Do we really believe it, or understand it? If we’re infinite consciousness after we leave the body, then we’re infinite consciousness right now. When we believe only what our five senses supply us with that our brains decode and we (our “you” aspects) then interpret based on how we were conditioned by the various systems in place that hold so much influence over us and our lives (which influences past, present, and future perceptions and experiences), we cut ourselves off from our full, true nature. We say we want to be authentic, but what does that mean to us? Will we include the fact we are more than our thoughts and emotions and body? Or that, in fact, we are not them, that we simply use them while we’re here?

We don’t like feeling limited, but we aren’t too excited about going the distance with what’s being discussed here. In fact, it can be frightening because we’ll have to step away from tribal mentality, which might make the tribe leaders and members a bit peeved with us. (Ever wondered why that is?) Just that thought, or acting on it, can make us feel alone, but only until we find others who understand and live this. Not going the distance is making a choice, one we’re not happy with the results of but are used to, or conditioned to be used to, or are afraid to accept and allow.

We identify with our thoughts, and when we do so, we believe they express absolute truth. All you have to do is have one of your assumptions proven false to see this, which is a minimal form or example of this. We have tens of thousands of thoughts each day. We, as our five-sense “you”, may believe we need to believe each of those thoughts, simply because they’re there. You may recall the revelation that subliminal messages are placed in movies and commercials and more to influence people to buy products or believe whatever. Are those your thoughts? Did you choose them? YOU can choose your thoughts, just as you can choose which item on the stock exchange tickertape to pay attention to or focus on. You really can.

Is it easy to remember you’re more than your thoughts, more than what the five senses indicate you are? Not necessarily, because every day you wake up and set about dealing with whatever you deal with. What’s going on around you or “you”, based on your beliefs, can convince you to be busy in action or have busy-mind, rather than productive-constructive mind, or relaxed mind, which is usually when inner knowing communicates with us. With either or both of these busy aspects going on, who feels they have time or energy to remember he or she is infinite consciousness having a human experience? But we can remember this, even amid the busyness of our lives.

It is important to make time or remember to plug into the Truth of who we are and into our connection with the One Source so we don’t get lost in illusions and delusions. Otherwise, we’re prone to believe we’re weak rather than strong, stuck rather than creative and innovative, limited rather than infinite, not in control of our choices when we can be, and so on—even though some days or during some experiences, we feel limited more than infinite; but we can remember and recover our footing, if we know about this in the first place.

It will also help to know and remember that two of the parts of your brain are the R-complex, which is responsible for our fight, flight, or freeze reactions, and the neocortex, which helps us think things through. In the briefest of nutshells, you have both the ability to react based on whether you feel safe or not, which is based on your thoughts about events, as well as the ability to think about your thoughts a bit before you react. One reason we feel we can’t think straight or with more conscious consideration when we’re having strong (negative) emotions is because the R-complex is activated to ensure survival. This is why we can think straight, or more consciously, when we’re relaxed, without busy-mind.

The R-complex cannot distinguish between the past and present, and is why your body responds to a negative memory as though “it’s” happening now, which causes you to behave as though your survival is at stake, even if you’re lying in a hammock, with everything quiet all around you. If you rely on the R-complex too often or too much, you don’t exercise the neocortex. You then create brain “ruts” that lead you down the path of reactive behavior more than create neuronal “paths” that lead to conscious consideration. This alone may inspire you to become aware of thoughts and aware of the thinker.

How can you distinguish between thoughts and inner knowing? Thoughts have a loudness quality to them: they’re insistent. Inner knowing is subtle. It will nudge you once or twice then go quiet if you don’t listen. You can practically feel thoughts in your head, almost like a movie screen on your forehead facing inward. You feel inner knowing in your chest center, maybe you even feel it radiate into your limbs, but you don’t feel it in your head. Put another way, you feel it in your heart-energy center, not in your mind.

Your thoughts may lead you to want to be considered clever (after all, cleverness is rewarded), which your mind, through thoughts, can accommodate; but clever and wise are not the same thing. Wisdom is something your infinite consciousness provides. Cleverness without wisdom can be disastrous. It can lead to creating things or taking actions that do more short- and long-term harm than any real good, because cleverness doesn’t always consider ethics, morality, justice, and overall well-being, whereas infinite consciousness always does. Cleverness AND wisdom is a beneficial combination. We can look at our own lives and at what’s going on around us to see when cleverness, wisdom, or the combination is used, and when they are not.

Our thoughts based on only five senses keep us occupied, so occupied that we often can’t see the bigger picture going on around us. However, we can choose to put our attention on our connection to the One Source so we keep in mind who we really are, which is not the thoughts we have and not the thoughts we’re told to have or are influenced to have by anyone else. We can look at what’s going on in us and around us and ascertain whether we follow the path the One Source would encourage, or the herd. When we realize we’re not our thoughts, we can think and feel and know for ourselves, and do so from a higher perspective, a perspective more akin to the One Source than the “matrix”. It’s a good practice, one you’ll appreciate. 

Practice makes progress.

© Joyce Shafer

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Do You Plan for a Bad Day?

Who would deliberately plan to have a bad day, you ask? Anyone who doesn’t set themselves up for a good or better day, that’s who. Which one do you plan for?

Honestly, there are days that go “bad” and there’s nothing you can do about the events that happened. When such days occur, you have to do what you can to manage yourself through them as best you can. But for our purposes here, I’m talking about the “average” days, the days most of us wake to and experience. The reason such days are not as good as they might be is because of how they are put into motion by default.

Here are some ways we set ourselves up for a bad day by default, ways we might not perceive as obvious when we do them; they’re more like habits than conscious decisions. These include:

·         Not getting enough sleep, whether this is one or a few nights each week or every night (or day, for those who work nightshifts), when you have control over this, that is

·         Reviewing problems, issues, or life in general in a negative or hopeless way prior to going to sleep

·         Not preparing for the next day the night before, or not planning for enough time in the morning (or whenever) that you need to get ready for your day

·         Not establishing your priorities for the day then following up on them so you feel a sense of accomplishment

·         Not taking even a few minutes in the morning to meditate, or state appreciation, or set positive intentions for the day

·         Letting complaints or criticisms fill your first moments of the day because you aren’t filling your mind or fueling your energy with positive, constructive, supportive, appreciative, or empowering thoughts

·         Too many foods or beverages that throw body chemistry out of whack, or not eating enough of the foods that support your well-being

The opposites of the above are also obvious, but what about the inner ones, the ones that are more subtle? How can you set up a good or better day at the inner level, especially when you aren’t aware that you aren’t creating that set-up or that you can? You can use one of these paragraphs below upon waking and as needed during the day. Of course, you can add to these in ways meaningful to you.

If you’re metaphysical-spiritual, you might say:

I am thankful for this day. I am thankful for each blessing that comes my way and for each time I can be a blessing to others. I am thankful I easily see blessings for what they are. I am thankful for the gifts I possess that I share and can share. I am thankful that I am guided to be lovingly appropriate and appropriately loving to, with, and about others and to, with, and about myself.

If you’re religious, you might say:

This is the day the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad. I ask that the heart, mind, and hands of each person I engage with be blessed so they are a blessing to others and themselves. And I ask the same for myself so I may be a blessing, as well.

Another Way We Can Plan for a Better Day

A question we might get asked or give thought to ourselves is, “How did your day go?” Our answer usually includes what happened and how we feel about it. We don’t usually answer with how we managed ourselves or lessons we were presented with and what we did with them. We don’t usually say, “I was short-tempered” or rude, unloving, unkind, self-absorbed, lacked integrity, stingy, unappreciative, etc. Who’d want to make such admissions?! Some might be willing to do that, but it might be uncomfortable to do, willing or not. You can practice ahead of time to be and behave better, as well as in the moment. You can practice the paragraphs offered here or create your own, both the saying of the words (with meaning and feeling, not just as a chore) and put what the words represent into practice. 

Here’s a secret: three seconds of sincere, pure appreciation has more power than ten minutes of meditation where your mind keeps drifting off to what you need to do or what you’re upset about, or ten minutes of stating or writing affirmations, when this is done by rote—because you’re supposed to do it—or while contradicting or doubting the affirmations.

One reason we tend toward “bad” days is because we don’t practice planning for good ones. Each time we don’t use one of the paragraphs above or something similar to them to support a more positive mindset and energy vibration, each time we only criticize others rather than compliment or validate them as well, each time we complain and not balance this out with appreciation, we practice the opposite of what we desire: a better experience of ourselves, others, and life.

I say that practice makes progress, which is a statement of a fact. A lot of what we might call failures or lacks of success or frustrations in our day-to-day experiences is primarily a result of not practicing what leads us out of that wilderness and into the oasis of better thoughts, words, and actions that attract or get matched by more of the same. Practice means you do whatever that inner or outer activity is, often and repeatedly. Seldom does a person have just one thought about something, say, approaching a difficult person or issue more constructively, and from that moment on do it correctly each time. Practice is deliberate. Practice is for your own sake and in your best interest.

Is your practice a bad attitude or is it an open-to-learning-and-evolving one and on how you might be a blessing? Is your practice one of always being right (even when wrong) or one aimed at expansion of conscious awareness? Is your practice one of feeling denied in life or one of appreciation and counting your blessings? Is your practice only about what you can get or receive or also what you can give? If your days feel worse or less than better, check what you’re consistently putting into practice. It’s a good practice; one you’ll appreciate.    

Practice makes progress.

© Joyce Shafer

Are You or Anyone You Know Too Easily Offended?

Being too easily offended is a form of self-victimization. Ouch! What are the symptoms of this mindset, and what can be done about this?

We don’t always recognize an imbalance in our mindset for what it is. We experience the results of it, though, and that’s where we tend to place our focus, which leads us to completely miss the cause. When we miss or ignore the cause of a mindset that doesn’t serve us, effecting a change is darn near impossible. As Albert Einstein said, “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.”

Anyone of us has times when we feel offended, and perhaps rightfully so. But there are some who are caught in a loop where they seem to be offended more often than not, and in a way that seems illogical to others. If you are or someone you know is too easily offended, this stems from a core thought that has a core emotion attached to it, which causes a specific action to be taken. Every action ultimately comes forth from a desired response or a conditioned one. A core thought may be, “This should not be happening,” and a core emotion might be, “I’m unsafe (whatever form that might take).” The usual, primary desires are to feel safe, valued, and fulfilled. Any of us, but especially anyone too easily offended, may believe if we feel these, caused or provided by others, we will feel happy.

People who are too easily offended are seldom happy and seldom considered happy by others. Some may feel they’ll never be happy for reasons that seem justifiable to them. And those in their lives who attempt to provide what will help them feel happy find it an ongoing and oftentimes futile effort.

What are some symptoms of being too easily offended? Please keep in mind that what’s listed here was somehow part of an individual’s conditioning. They (or you) may not actually want to do what’s listed, but they do practice them, because they’re stuck in a mindset and will remain there until they decide to become unstuck. Also keep in mind that wherever we are on the scale of this, we can all benefit by paying attention to the cause-and-effect factors of these symptoms.

·         People easily offended are consistent (or compulsive) complainers. Some complaining is natural to all of us, but they may take it to an extreme level. Those locked into extreme expressions of this may not realize they seldom engage in real conversations, that is, conversations about things not negative in nature or not focused on them and what they consider their problems.

·         They blame how they feel on others. Whether they use the statement or not, their mindset is, “If this would happen (If you’d just do what I want you to do), then I’d be happy.” Even when someone does what the person wants, they aren’t really happy. They may feel self-satisfied—temporarily—when they get what they want, but that’s quite different from happy.

·         They don’t tend to enjoy or appreciate what they do have because they focus on what they don’t have or believe they have to have, or on what others “need” to do or aren’t doing, in order to feel good about themselves or life. They don’t realize how they victimize themselves, while believing it’s others doing it to them.

·         Easily triggered, they tend to assume and presume rather than seek facts or seek to understand others’ motivations or the bigger picture. A practical or logical approach about issues that come up may not be used, because their first and foremost goal is to eliminate the pain they feel when triggered into feeling offended. They often believe lashing out is the quickest, most effective way to ease the pain. Possible short- and long-term consequences of this action are not considered.

·         Their relationship with what-is is tenuous. It’s likely the same for their relationship with Source. Their personal and/or spiritual growth is impacted because inner work is not foremost in their minds; getting others to adjust their behavior is.

·         They are more often than not angry, bitter, and unforgiving.

·         They may actually be generous and display generosity, but are often viewed as selfish—and often behave this way when triggered. This selfishness arises from insecurity. Insecurity stems from needing validation from others rather than relying on it from self and Source. When they don’t get this validation, or feel they don’t, they demand it in some form or another. Survival (according to their interpretation) rather than personal development seems to occupy their energy.

·         This insecurity causes them to be negative most of the time, always expecting the worst. This makes them miserable, within themselves and to be around. (Law of Attraction is not something they’re aware of, or if they are, isn’t paid attention to.)

·         All of this blocks the plan for their life, blocks their inner wisdom from expanding and working for them.

·         They are trapped in anger and conflict, having not learned that they can pick their battles in life. They feel everything is a battle, not realizing the most significant battle goes on inside them.

·         They see life and situations as always either/or, black or white, them against others, rather than that all are and everything in existence is interconnected, which may cause their thought process to be more mechanical than organic.

·         They relate to reality quite differently than those not as easily offended.

·         They tend to seldom be relaxed or calm, or to deliberately step mentally away from issues for a period of time each day. It isn’t easy for them to have fun or enjoy ordinary moments, or even special ones in the way they might. They may even get angry if others around them are enjoying themselves or are calm. Rather than raise their vibration to join the merriment or serenity, they’ll do or say something to bring others down to their vibration.

·         Their happiness is incumbent on others.

The book How to Have What You Really Want (An Easy Guide That Can Take You to the Next Level in Any Area of Your Life) has this to say about being happy: Happy is not an emotion, it’s a state of being, as is content, secure, and so forth. If you believe that you won’t be happy or feel secure until others do what you think they should, you’ve given your personal power away. If you do this, you’ll continue to try to get from others what you should be giving to yourself. This is one reason many of us lead quiet, or not-so-quiet, lives of frustration. We believe anything we want must come from outside of ourselves. If you accept that what you really want is to feel a certain way, then you have to accept that the only way you reach that feeling is by choosing to—and by looking out for your best interests and honoring the best interests of others.

What can be done about this? The first thing is to see if a health issue is involved. Someone in poor health or in pain, or who is exhausted, may experience some or all of the symptoms listed above. A chemical imbalance or mental illness can cause anomalous behaviors, as well. If either of these is the case, the first thing to do is address it through medical means to provide relief. But appreciation can still be a choice to assist you or the person to experience the self and life from a better perspective, rather than have a when/then mindset. Even one or several small segments of time given each day to appreciation will make a difference.

Here are several questions taken from my iPEC coach training manual that can help you, if you’re easily offended, or someone else you know who is.

1.     Let your inner Wisdom speak: what is the reality of your situation/story/belief?

2.     What do you suppose is really going on here?

3.     Which part of you is talking now?

4.     What do you think is the inner thought here?

5.     Which part of what you are saying is a story and what is the truth?

If you are too easily offended or know someone who is, recognize that although feeling triggered may be justified by an event, another story is running simultaneously, one that will block rational, practical, or even spiritual approaches. A circle will be traveled, one that goes nowhere, but deepens the emotional pain. All of us have a story running underneath everything else that goes on in life. The story is comprised of core beliefs that influence us in every way. The good news is that beliefs change but Truths never do. It’s a matter of discerning the difference between the two, as well as which one you listen to and follow—a belief or a Truth. It’s a matter of identifying beliefs that don’t serve you and replacing them with ones that do, as you move closer and closer to Truths that empower you in positive ways.

It is helpful to know what the cause of how we feel is, but getting stuck on that cause rather than asking “What can I do about this at my inner level that I will do?” isn’t going to get us where we want to be. Question 5 above is a significant one. We tell ourselves stories all the time—and we believe them. That’s the voice each one of us has in our head that chatters on. We can recognize that emotions follow thoughts, which creates a loop, which means we can be deliberate about guiding those inner conversations. We can engage new thinking that allows us to choose better thoughts that serve us. It’s a good practice; one you’ll appreciate.  

Practice makes progress.

© Joyce Shafer

Do You Feel Shortchanged in Life?

Do you ever feel shortchanged in life? It’s an understandable feeling to have, especially in a world that pushes a more-is-mandatory mindset. But, is that mindset helping or holding you back?

“I’ve spent too long thinking about what was taken and not what was given.”

That is a line of dialogue spoken by Prince Caspian in the movie The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. When I heard it, it gave me pause. How often we follow the train of thought about what we feel was taken from us, including what we feel was taken from us ahead of time. This may include thoughts like:

I should have been born wealthy.

I should have been born into a different family.

I should have been born in a different geographical location.

I should have been born beautiful/handsome.

I should have been born with better hair.

I should have been given a better education.

I should have been . . . You get the picture, and probably have your own list of “should-have-beens” you could add here.

Notice that nothing is listed above that states “I never should have”. Never-should-have statements are more often than not about choices we made, or didn’t make. But look at something specific about the ahead-of-time statements: I’m not saying you couldn’t add to that list in a way that contradicts what I’m about to say, but the kinds of things listed Can All Be Changed, can’t they, especially in this day and age. Changes might take effort, time, and or money, but they can be accomplished or obtained.

Sometimes we’re given something and then it seems taken from us through some form of ending. Such times are ones when we might feel and focus on the “taken” aspect first and foremost. This is understandable, and natural, for us. But, we may get stuck here and focus more on what we once had, or never had, or haven’t received as yet, than on what we had been given, and on what we’ve been given that we still have.

Loss is the very thing Prince Caspian is referring to in the movie dialogue line. (Movie Spoiler Alert coming next.) Caspian’s focus is on finding his “lost” father, and he is given the opportunity to reunite with his father who had died and gone to live in Aslan’s land of eternal life. But to do this would mean he’d have to abandon the life and potential opportunities he’d been given, ones he’d not fully appreciated as yet, because for so long he instead sought to recover what he’d lost.

We were given life and the opportunity to experience it, to mold it and us in ways that feel and are appropriate for us. We were given family and or friends who become our family. We were given more resources than we’ve used or likely ever will.

We were given innate gifts and the opportunity to nurture and use them; though, we sometimes don’t develop our gifts, because we’re trying to impose other people’s gifts on us, whether others impose this on us or we impose it on ourselves because we don’t see the value of our own gifts. When we ignore our gifts or attempt to live as though we have someone else’s gifts, we frustrate ourselves. We make life harder for us than it needs to be. This can also cause us to believe something was taken from us, rather than see what we were given. And, we deny the ability of others to benefit from our gifts when we don’t use and share them, which impedes fulfillment for us.

One of the greatest things we’ve been given, in my opinion, is knowledge of and the opportunity to have a relationship with Source. There have certainly been times in history when this wasn’t the way it is today. Granted, there are still those who wish to or do limit and control this for others, but fortunately that isn’t prevalent. Most of us can find the knowledge we need about Source and choose to nurture that connection.

We literally waste our time, lives, and energy when we focus or dwell on what we feel has been taken from us, or should have been given to us, rather than on what we’ve been given, can create, and what we receive as we move through life. I leave it to you to contemplate how this fits with Law of Attraction; but take time to think of all you have and have been given, even if you’ve yet put it into best use. It’s a good practice; one you’ll appreciate.

Practice makes progress.

© Joyce Shafer

Do You Believe Untruths You Tell Yourself?

You and your life will never be more than what you think about yourself and life. So, what will you choose to think?

You assess, measure, and treat others and life according to the way you think, including how you think about yourself, which includes truths and untruths. You can think on purpose. You can think truths on purpose. You can choose to choose your own thoughts.

Here are some examples of untruths we tell ourselves and some truths we can tell ourselves instead:

U: Today is going to be a bad day.

T: I am grateful for today, and grateful I can trust myself to choose thoughts, words, and actions that support me and others in a productive, caring way.

U: My family member(s)/work associates/etc. take advantage of me, or don’t treat me right.

T: Everything and everyone is a blessing to me—even if a hidden one; and I choose to be a blessing to others. I can look for and find the blessings and appreciate them, whether that means I stay where I am or I don’t.

U: I know they are (this is) going to annoy me.

T: I choose to set my mind on peace, and I make choices appropriate for me from there.

U: I am what I do (job, homemaker, etc.).

T: I am the one who chooses what I do and who I am.

U: My worth is based on what I do and achieve, and on my bank balance.

T: My worth is aligned with Source, and is immeasurable in the heart of Source and in the hearts of those I am a blessing to.

U: My life sucks.

T: My experience of life is based on my perspective, and I always have the power to choose my perspective.

U: Who I am is based on what others think of me.

T: Who I am is based on what Source is—because we are one, as well as on what I choose to tell myself about who I REALLY am—an expression of Source.

U: I can’t be happy until (fill in the blank) changes or happens.

T: I am happy the moment I choose to be; and my deeper understanding of how life works (Law of Attraction) helps me to make this choice as soon as it feels appropriate to me to do so.

From Joyce Meyer: “You feel the way you feel because you think the thoughts you think. . . . (scientific finding) 87% of all illness is connected to wrong thinking.” What do you imagine this percentage is for other things going on in your life and for how you experience your life? If you want more joy and serenity, you can amend your perspectives so you can amend your emotions so you can amend your thoughts so you can amend your words and actions. You can choose to set yourself up to experience your moments in a more empowered way.

You can look to and rely on Source and Source’s infinite resources rather than solely on where you are in your life right this moment and what you believe you are capable of. It’s vital that you not let the opinions—positive or negative—of any one person or society influence knowing your truth, the Truth of Source, and the Truth of your connection to and with Source, and what you are truly capable of doing or accomplishing at, first, the inner level and, second, in your life.

You can tell yourself untruths or truths. You can tell yourself you’re all alone or that Source is always with you. You can tell yourself that life is a struggle or that Source always supplies and provides what’s needed, and in right timing. You can tell yourself that you are less or that you are a spiritual being in a body, engaged in a process of experiences that lead to spiritual evolution and empowerment. You can let fear control you or you can trust Source’s inspirations and trust yourself to make choices appropriate for you. You can tell yourself you cannot choose your thoughts or that you can and will.

You can choose to nurture and engage untruths or Truths. Both can lead you to spiritual evolution and personal empowerment, but Truths will get you there quicker and with far less drama.  

Here is something from Abraham-Hicks that you might consider making your Truth: “I'm going to be happy. I'm going to skip. I'm going to be glad. I'm going to smile a lot. I'm going to be easy. I'm going to count my blessings. I'm going to look for reasons to feel good. I'm going to dig up positive things from the past. I'm going to look for positive things where I stand. I'm going to look for positive things in the future. It is my natural state to be a happy person. It's natural for me to love and to laugh. This is what is most natural for me. I am a happy person!” It’s a good practice; one you’ll appreciate.

Practice makes progress.

© Joyce Shafer