What You Want and Want to Feel Is Just One Thought Away

We want spirituality or metaphysics to be easier: they are. It’s just that we’re so practiced at doing life the hard way. But, “easier” is really just one right thought away.

Any “off” feelings I have (feelings that don’t feel good) are clear indicators to me that I’m practicing resistance. The intensity of the feeling(s) indicates how much resistance I’m practicing. Once my awareness is on this, I can pay attention to what my resistance is (what I’m practicing), and that I can stop doing it.

We tend to think that our better practice, if we do it right, is supposed to stop any and all contrasts (triggers for our resistance) from ever happening again. No. And, you’ll feel and do a lot better if you understand that your practice is to help you be better at thinking your thoughts, rather than your thoughts thinking you, before, during, and after a contrast.

One big contrast is the idea that we’re supposed to be spiritual or metaphysical superstars. The result of this is that not only are we trying to figure out what our practice is and how to do it, but we carry guilt and self-condemnation for not already being a “superstar” or for not becoming one after a very short time of minimal, sporadic practice.

It’s time to toss away these feelings and start using contrasts and resistance for our benefit. Contrasts and resistance are like checking yourself in the mirror. You can choose to love and appreciate what you see, choose to loathe and criticize it, or choose to improve. Sometimes the best choice at the moment is to feel a bit better, which may be as simple as releasing resistance about whatever currently has your attention. You can assist yourself if you begin to think of resistance as an opportunity to practice how to let it go. The more you practice this, the better and faster you get at it.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve had a lot of practice chewing on one or more negative thoughts the same way a dog chews on a bone. These days I’m paying a great deal more attention when I do this. I catch myself doing this and ask, “What do I really want to create more of, really want to feel?” If I don’t want more of what I’m thinking about or feeling, I need to let those thoughts go (be willing to let those thoughts go) and find a general good feeling I prefer, and step into it. And, do this as many times as it takes.

Here’s how to release resistance AND move into better thoughts and feelings: Let go of negative specifics. By “negative specifics” I mean rehashing the past, negatively anticipating the future, and complaining or criticizing. Each of these leads you into more or stronger resistance, as well as “digs the hole you’re in deeper.” You want to go general. General means to say something to your self like, “It’s beautiful outside today” or “I love moments when I feel really good, really in flow.” Maybe recall a time when the Universe gave you an awesome surprise or affirmation.

When you go general, your intention should be to tap into a good feeling and hold that vibration, without thinking any specific thoughts. Be deliberate about this practice, especially when you feel any feeling you’d label as undesired. Return to this feeling as often as you need or want to. This practice creates desired shifts because it releases you from resistance, which blocks desired outcomes and feelings.

Our tendency is to practice being in the frequency vibration of what we perceive as a problem rather than be in the frequency vibration of a, or the, solution. No solution can come to us, either as an inspired idea or an experience, as long as we wallow in thoughts and emotions about how we don’t like a particular contrast. That’s like tuning the radio to a Heavy Metal station and expecting to hear classical music. If you want to feel and be a particular way, you have to align your frequency vibration – your energy radio dial – to the station you prefer.

Here’s the “simple, but not necessarily easy” aspect of this: Any better feeling is truly always just one right thought away. The reason it’s not easier is because we’re so practiced at doing the opposite. It’s not easier, because our ego-aspect is attached to being right, to feeling secure only when it knows the how, what, when, and who solution rather than trusting the solution or desired experience will arrive, if we just let go of resistance vibrations. Trust in Source or the Universe is also just one right thought away.

One right thought is worthiness. You are worthy, but you may not allow yourself to feel it, because of all the opposite thoughts you practice. It’s the same for abundance, serenity, joy, and any other wonderful feeling you enjoy or desire to enjoy. They are all only one thought away.

Maybe like me, you too have experienced this as Truth, from time to time. However, it does have to be the right thought, that is, the right thought for YOU – the thought that gets you over the bump or hump and into your better-feeling energy vibration. The right thought is the one that results in you feeling in alignment and or in appreciation. Sometimes you may have to sift through a lot of thoughts to find The One that does it for you. Sometimes, especially with practice, you can find the right thought quite quickly, if you follow the path of going general to release resistance.

But just as I said about the superstar idea causing you to feel bad about yourself, you are not to stress or strain about finding the right thought either. I’m going to repeat this because it is important: Go general and create a shift simply by remembering a moment that felt really good, when you felt a way you loved feeling, and hold that vibration without practicing specific thoughts. Allow knowing that you have the power to choose your thoughts and the knowledge of what a right thought can do for you, to help you feel empowered, no matter what contrast appears.

What you want and want to feel is there for you as soon as you match your vibration to it. You can match your vibration to what you desire as soon as you cease practice of any resistance vibrations, which often are about your focus on the perceived absence of what you desire. It’s a good practice, one you’ll appreciate.             

Practice makes progress.

© Joyce Shafer

How to Make Your Life Problem-Free

A problem-free life: don’t we all like the sound of that! There is a very real way to achieve this, but likely not the way you’re thinking.

For a while now, people with the intention to motivate others (or themselves) have said the Chinese word for crisis – weiji – also means opportunity. Come to find out, that’s not precisely accurate (sorry, folks). However, the well-intentioned premise is still just as valuable to us, whether or not the meaning of the word we were told is accurate or not.

You see, what the premise delivers to us like a special gift is that each moment presents us with the choice as to whether we will perceive and act from the mindset that something is a problem or an opportunity. The actual event or moment is neither; it’s just an event or moment. It’s all about what WE think, speak, and do at and after that moment of choice.

Now, maybe we need to pacify the ego-aspect a bit, because when a problem shows up or smacks us hard, it doesn’t feel authentic to call it an opportunity. We aren’t always able to rapidly move out of feelings or emotions that come up at such times. It’s too big of a leap for many of us, which, by the way, knowing and owning up to this fact is more authentic than trying to fake being okay and calling something we’re not happy about an opportunity when we’re still grappling or struggling with what we feel. An example of such authenticity comes from a friend of mine who asked her three and a half-year-old niece how she was doing. The child answered, “I lost my sunshine,” and told her aunt what had happened to cause this. My friend replied, “Well, maybe you’ll find your sunshine again later this afternoon.” The child responded with an emphatic "No, not today... tomorrow!"

There may be times when a problem happens and “opportunity” does feel like the word we could work with, but maybe “challenge” or some other word fits the bill better. That’s okay, too. The thing to consider as important here is to choose a word better than “problem” (or any of its first cousins), which tends to bog us down, and makes our energy vibration not one we really want matched by Law of Attraction.

I don’t know about you, but the word “problem” has a lot of not-so-happy connotations attached to it for me. I cringe a bit when anyone says, “There’s a problem,” because to me, that’s telling me I should expect struggle, anxiety, stress, and possibly some other things I’m not eager to experience, whether about the situation or from the person and their attitude about it. I also need to get over myself about this.

We tell ourselves we want a problem-free life, which doesn’t really serve us. Do you really, really know anyone, anywhere on the planet, who has a genuinely problem-free life? I was thinking about this and got the mental image of life resembling an obstacle course we’ve chosen to practice on for strength training of our emotional, mental, and spiritual aspects. Each obstacle is there to challenge us to use what we’ve learned so far and to learn even more, not to defeat us. And we aren’t given just one chance to run the course, we run it as long as we’re alive. It’s never about doing the course perfectly, but about strength, skills, wisdom, enlightenment, and empowerment practice and building.

And this leads me to something I heard Abraham-Hicks say – something that sent a rocket off in my awareness about “The Path of Least Resistance”. I’ll get to what Abraham said in a moment. First, I want to offer that the phrase is a really catchy one that tends to resonate with most of us. But, in my thoughts, it doesn’t only mean the “obstacle course” of life is mostly clear and therefore easier, but also that WE are clear or mostly clear of resistance, as well. (Food for thought: Abraham says the path of least resistance isn’t always easy.)

Back to what Abraham said. Abraham explained that the Source within us is ALWAYS focused on the path of least resistance. If you’ll pause right now and think about that, it makes perfect sense. Source never stresses or strains – because IT KNOWS the paths of least resistance and follows them. However, we each have the right to choose the thoughts we think. And here’s the rocket-launcher statement (for me, at least): “When you choose a thought that doesn’t feel good, you have not chosen the path of least resistance.” I add this: at the very least, when you can’t honestly in a moment choose a thought that makes you feel good, choose one that doesn’t make you feel worse, until you’re able to choose one that makes you feel better or really good. In my opinion, that is the clearest, most concise statement about how we self-sabotage how we feel, what we experience, and outcomes we create that I’ve ever come across. It’s so darn simple and all-encompassing!

The Source within us is always with us, ready to provide the path of least resistance all of the time, every time. We choose a thought that doesn’t feel good, and – wham! – we throw an obstacle onto the course or a boulder into the stream that blocks the flow. No wonder Abraham keeps “beating the drum” about our choosing to feel good and to match the vibration of what we desire.

And, it might help you to consider it easier to match a vibration, if you choose a thought that makes you feel good then quickly lock into the feeling and let go of the thought. The feeling is more important than the thought that got you there. In fact, feeling the feeling will help you stay in the feeling. Thoughts have a way of becoming like the engine on a train that starts chugging forward slowly then builds momentum. Next thing you know, you’re mind is following that train of thought down one or more tracks you hadn’t intended to travel. That thought train becomes an obstacle to holding a feeling that makes you feel good.

Obstacles on the life course are there for us, from us, even if our ego-aspect doesn’t agree with or understand this. Every contrast (another word for “problem” that might feel better to us), causes us to desire something different and better and aim at it; at least, that’s what contrasts are meant to inspire in us. Therefore, we can no more put a halt to contrasts, problems, obstacles – call them what you will – from showing up than we can halt the tide. But we can learn from them. We can learn how to find a place of harmony within us about this fact. And as with the tide, we can learn to look for the gifts that are carried onto the shore by the waves, as well as how the waves can cleanse the sand.

Am I saying we just have to accept “problems”, whatever we decide to call them, and just live with that? Yes and no. Yes, because life is dynamic so stuff is going to happen. No, because when you choose more thoughts that do not create resistance in you, life begins to feel different in a good way. You create less to feel resistant about. When something does happen that feels challenging, you’re better positioned to choose what you think, say, and do about it, which affects everything that follows the pivot-point moment of the event.

So, yes, you can make your life problem-free with an attitude adjustment, by exchanging the word “problem” with one that works better for you energy-wise, and by deliberately choosing to feel good or at least not worse as often as you possibly can, in order to travel the path of least resistance. It’s a good practice, one you’ll appreciate.           

Practice makes progress.

© Joyce Shafer

Procrastination Is A Message

In our world where “Just do it” and “Take massive action” are touted as mottos and mantras, procrastination is often considered a bad word. But, what if procrastination holds a powerful message or process for you?

Maybe you’ve experienced being inspired or feeling compelled to take specific action at a specific time, and you found you were right to act on it. And, maybe you’ve had the same experience I have, where you procrastinate, only to discover you were right to do so. Do you find the first example easier to trust or allow than the second? I’d say many, if not most, people feel like that. We’ve been taught to be prejudiced in this way.

Trusting your intuitive impulse to procrastinate can be a challenging mental and emotional place to be in, because something inside you is urging you to not take action, yet others are pressing you to do so or you can hear those who talk and teach about taking action chattering in your mind. You may go into self-judgment mode, and that makes you feel even worse. OR, maybe you’ve learned to trust the particular feeling that happens at those times.

If intuitive procrastination proved to be the right thing to do about a particular matter, that’s one thing. What else might be going on when procrastination happens? I listened to an Abraham-Hicks audio on YouTube called “Procrastination is the way you feel when trying to fill your own grid.” Unless you’re familiar with the grid concept, you likely have no idea what this means. I’ll explain; and I promise the explanation will connect with procrastination again.

When you focus on anything, you summon it to you. The way to summon productively is to create an energy grid; then you must allow the grid to be filled in. Think of this like a house being built. The frame is up and you can see through the grid work of the boards; you have somewhat of an idea what the house will look like. Then walls go up and you begin to get a better image of what it will look like as it gets more and more filled in.

Your grid is your point of attraction. When you create your grid, you want to think and feel deliberately rather than “all over the place,” as may often happen with thoughts and feelings. And, despite what you’ve been told, you do not want to put specifics into the grid; all those specific details will slow the energy and make you work harder than you need to. You want to aim at general feelings with words like ease, comfort, appreciation, confidence, serenity, enthusiasm, joy, love, well-being, worthiness, right place, right time, right people, abundance, means to accomplish, etc., in your grid. This is the framework you create.

Each time you put a general word into your grid, feel what it’s like to feel the energy of the word, e.g., what does ease feel like; what does enthusiasm feel like? Let the feelings, not specific details, do the work for you energetically. What I do is call to mind a moment when I felt the feeling I want to deliberately feel in the now. Once I connect with that feeling, I let go of replaying the moment in my mind because that will just clutter the “space” with details, and I simply feel the feeling for as long as I can hold it. You want to practice feeling the vibration of each word often. Practice leads to resonance with the fullness of the vibration. When a vibration is matched, you experience full manifestation; but while you’re raising your energy and getting your vibration closer and closer as a match, some pretty cool things happen, as well. This is the Universe filling in everything after the framework is created.

Your grid is a reflection of or is constructed by your active beliefs, thoughts, and feelings. Too often, we decide what we want then push ourselves toward what we desire (or believe we’re supposed to) rather than allow it to come to us, whether the pushing is mental, emotional, physical, or all three. We tend to leave the spiritual aspect out of the equation; yet, that spiritual energy work is what gets the ball rolling, so to speak, and in our favor, and is what the “allowing” is about (more on this as we go). All that pushing usually or eventually puts us up against an obstruction of some kind, so we push or struggle even more, or we stop in our tracks—we procrastinate, or the Universe procrastinates on our behalf.

Procrastination can come from resistance to doing something you’re required to do rather than inspired to do, as you construct your grid of experiences and manifestations. When you feel inspired, you are eager to take action. When you feel required but uninspired to take action, you can feel unenthusiastic, put upon, or resistant.

When you procrastinate about doing something you know you need to do, check the Whys. Why do you need to do it; is there any benefit to you or others, or both, if you take this action? Why do you hesitate about getting started? Something Abraham said that I found amusing and profound, that perhaps you, as well as I, have encountered is: “I HAVE to do this thing that I don’t want to do. And I can’t figure out why I’m not getting the cooperation from the Universe to do this thing that I don’t want to do.”

If you know you really need to do something and aren’t feeling inspired, aren’t feeling cooperation from the Universe (or yourself), you might assess the conversation you’re having with yourself and the Universe about this thing. Is your conversation creating alignment for you about doing the needed action? If it isn’t, you can be certain it isn’t creating the alignment with Law of Attraction you truly desire either. So, you want to change your conversation.

Abraham said procrastination happens when we try to take action before the energies are aligned. We’re trying to move something forward through action rather than moving it forward with aligned momentum. We need to enlist the cooperation of the Universe by doing the energy work first, which is how the grid serves us: we use the grid to align our vibration with the vibration of what we wish to experience.

Releasing disempowering, resistant, worried, anxious thoughts and frenetic activity opens your energy – maybe “relaxes your energy” is a better term to use – so that your vibration can go up. When your vibration goes up, you get closer to the frequency of Source. The frequency of Source is alignment, never strain; if you’re straining on any level, you’re moving away from alignment. Don’t judge that; let it draw your attention to what’s happening so you can shift it. You know when you’re in alignment or not by how you feel. If you feel good or great feelings, you are aligned; if you have bad feelings, you aren’t. The thing to remember is that you can practice your way out of bad feelings by releasing any unwanted thoughts and filling in that space with general thoughts, like those mentioned above, and feeling their vibrations.

Let’s get back to procrastination. What are we supposed to do when we bump up against some forms of procrastination? I’ve done what Abraham advises about this: “When you feel procrastination, procrastinate. Don’t try to push through it. You can’t buck that current. Go do something fun.” I know, I know. There are times when you might be penalized for doing this. Take this into consideration, but know there are times you need to procrastinate because the Universe IS assisting you; times when you need to procrastinate because you need to pause and align your energy with your desired experience; and times when you procrastinate because you need to recharge your energy at the mental, emotional, and physical levels.

Rushing around with a frenzied energy or having too many things to do makes and keeps our energy vibration low, not high, the way we need it to be for alignment to happen. When we want or want to do too many things at one time, we diffuse our energy and cause a shortage of focus. A low vibration and shortage of focus creates struggle.

I recall a time when I was asked to house sit for a friend. I’d been under a strain about a lot of things, including money. When I arrived at her house, I made a conscious choice to put all of those kinds of thoughts and that kind of energy aside and be where I was for the time I was there, and that’s exactly what I did. A lot of people, feeling that kind of strain, would have used every spare moment to make a plan or take all kinds of action to change their financial situation.

I chose to take care of the house sitting responsibilities as needed and make the rest of the time a vacation, including or especially from thinking about anything other than what was right where I was. I did such a good job with this release that income and means for income started showing up in my inbox immediately and nearly every day I was there. I didn’t add any strain to this; I told those who contacted me that I was away until a certain date, made whatever arrangements I could easily make by e-mail (including pre-payment from them) until I returned home, and relaxed and recharged my energy with a nice influx of income that I didn’t stress or strain to acquire. A gain without strain—what we all desire yet usually do the opposite.

Someone said to Abraham, “So what I’m hearing is that it’s okay for me to just sit there and wait to feel inspired action.” Abraham responded: What you’re hearing is that you have no choice. What you’re hearing is you can take the action and can make yourself do it, but the results won’t be pleasing, and that’s why you feel like procrastinating. You’ve been playing this game a long time. It’s not fun. You can make yourself do it, but all you do is carve out a mediocre life by making yourself do stuff you don’t want to do. What you want to do is find the reason that you want to do it, or don’t do it.

Being easygoing, rather than stressing and straining, is frowned upon because society has stipulated that effort is rewarded, not laziness; that there can be no gain without pain; that no matter what, we should just do it. We’ve been conditioned to believe if we aren’t struggling or taking massive action (whether aligned with it or not), we aren’t doing what we should be doing. To deliberately procrastinate or allow it for a period of time while we raise our vibration and match it to what we want seems counter-intuitive because of this conditioning to please or appease those who do not know about or understand the leverage of alignment. We are conditioned to worry and be active, even if not productive, despite any trust we may feel about the alignment process and its leverage (if we’ve gotten that far in our spiritual development), because others will criticize us if we’re calm and trusting.

In John Earle’s book, Waking Up—Learning What Your Life is Trying to Teach You, he writes about a dying man’s last wish, which is for “the town judge to give his inheritance to the one of his three sons who the judge finds to be the laziest. ‘Laziest’ here is used to identify the son who is the greatest mystic…” From the Rumi poem, The Night Air: “Mystics are experts in laziness. They rely on it, because they continually see God working all around them. The harvest keeps coming in, yet they never did the plowing.”

That last part about “never did the plowing” might confuse some. When you focus on aligning your energy vibration to the energy vibration of what you choose to experience or create, you are working, but more effortlessly. And, you will also, in that place of alignment, receive inspired ideas. You’ll also find people look for you to connect with, rather than you looking for them. Yes, you take action as needed, but you don’t need to take more action than is really needed. You act, and you allow the Universe to direct what or who fulfills your desire to you so you connect with it or them, by holding the vibration.

Remember, it’s more effective to choose a good feeling and practice feeling it often, until inspired ideas begin to arrive and then you take inspired action you feel eager about. It’s more effective to relax and recharge, or revisit your Whys and conversations with yourself and Source when you feel procrastination. It’s a good idea to get familiar with the feeling that comes with procrastination you are meant to trust that is operating in your behalf. You are meant to create and enjoy the creative energy grid of your choice. Create a grid for any project, phone call, or whatever you wish to experience. It’s a good practice, one you’ll appreciate.           

Practice makes progress.

© Joyce Shafer

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The Words You Speak Become the House You Live In

This article title comes from a poster shared on a social site; the words are a timeless truth. Maybe it’s time to put them into practice by deepening our understanding of what they mean for us individually AND globally.

When I’d initially decided what I wanted to write about this week, I’d planned to include a paragraph from Lynne Twist’s book, The Soul of Money, because of its relevance to the scarcity mindset so many around the world practice in daily life. Then the Boston Marathon event happened on April 15, which inspired me to alter my intended topic. Twist’s words I wanted to share took on even greater importance, took on meaning of an even greater scope, which I believe you’ll understand when you read them.

Here is the paragraph: We think we live in the world. We think we live in a set of circumstances, but we don’t. We live in our conversation about the world and our conversation about the circumstances. When we’re in a conversation about fear and terror, about revenge and anger and retribution, jealously and envy and comparison, then that is the world we inhabit. If we’re in a conversation about possibility, a conversation about gratitude and appreciation for the things in front of us, then that’s the world we inhabit. I used to think that the words we say simply represent our inner thoughts expressed. Experience has taught me that it is also true that words we say create our thoughts and our experience, and even our world. The conversation we have with ourselves and with others—the thoughts that grip our attention—has enormous power over how we feel, what we experience, and how we see the world in that moment.

Soon after news about the Boston Marathon was released, I read many conversations about this event on social sites and in personal e-mails. Understandably, some asked or commented about the kind of world we live in. I’m in agreement with Lynne Twist that we live in a world created by our conversations, public and private. The world, which includes you and me, needs healing – because we need healing. And we can engage this process by first healing our own conversations. The words being spoken by each of us are, indeed, influencing the world house we live in, beginning with ourselves.

The thoughts, feelings, and beliefs we start with—our conversations—are what our experiences and results will be. As I thought about this, I imagined a GPS unit that was designed to follow and match our thoughts, which, if you think about it, is what happens with our self-conditioning that leads to “self-fulfilling prophecies,” and the Law of Attraction that matches experiences to our emotion-based feelings, without discretion. We program ourselves and our experiences akin to how we program GPS units, through our conversations with ourselves and others; yet, we are sometimes or often surprised about the destination we arrive at.

We can tell ourselves anything about anyone or any thing or matter; it really is our choice. But our stories are more often than not limited in perspective, because they are based on our perspective. This begs the question: What does anyone tell themselves in order to convince them or others to do something that harms others without regard, whether that’s at the severity level of 9/11 or the Boston Marathon (or some of the other events that are even more severe or ongoing), or cause relied-on pensions to deplete or disappear, commit crimes against or mistreat individuals, or any number of actions that never serve and honor the good of humanity or individuals (both those who do such acts and those who such acts are done to)? Any such actions always begin, always are seeded, as conversations with the self first then with others, if others are to be involved.

We can easily condemn those who commit such acts as with the marathon and any other events that span our individual and shared histories, but we are also called upon to examine our own behaviors in our personal and other relationships. Are they what they could be? Are our conversations with those we share our personal, professional, community, or spiritual life with what they could be? If not, we can or must begin there. We can look at those conversations and see what we can do to improve them.

Granted, there may be some, in our personal lives especially, who, without their collaboration, we cannot co-create a better relationship, but we can choose the conversations we have about that, as well. Not always easy, because it’s so tempting to appease the ego-aspect that wants to feel justified in carrying negativity (and acting on it), but it is doable. If we can’t collaborate, we can, at least, endeavor to find ways to cooperate or co-exist, as much as possible. And, yes, I’m well aware of the challenges inherent in this suggestion. The challenges present us with opportunities. There is a lot to do, or often is; but as with any worthy goal, dream, or improvement, you have to start where you are and keep going.

A friend included this line in an e-mail to me: “Keep your path filled with Light.” I responded that my path will be filled with Light if I am filled with Light, that I am the light-bringer in my life. I am the one who illuminates my path (or casts shadows upon it); and that, of course, this gets into my relationship with Source and with my self. This is also a conversation that each of us might consider having with ourselves.

One way we as individuals, and all the way up to global leaders, can begin to improve our conversations with ourselves and others, is to ask better or right questions. Randy Pausch said, “The questions are always more important than the answers.” He makes a strong point, when you consider what this really means: It means examining situations and considering solutions with different “eyes”, with more conscious awareness, especially about how all life is interconnected and interdependent.

Kurt Wright, in his book Breaking the Rules: Removing the Obstacles to Effortless High Performance, offers many sets of questions throughout the book. But here are five questions that open right dialogues and stimulate productive conversations for improvements that serve need, not greed – or hate.

1. What’s right? Or What’s working?
2. What makes it right? Or Why does it work?
3. What would be ideally right? Or What would work ideally?
4. What’s not yet quite right?
5. What resources can I find to make it right?

Many people are engaging in the wrong kinds of conversations with themselves and others. I venture to say that each of us do this when our ego-aspect is driving the bus rather than our TRUE spirit-aspect that comes from conscious awareness, not dogma of any kind. All we have to do is look around us to see this is true with our own lives and relationships, the economy, education, the environment, etc.

Different, that is, better, conversations are needed. We need solutions, yes, but too often we rush ahead without exploring right questions, which would lead to right solutions rather than just expedient ones that may or may not create better short- and long-term results for all or the majority involved. Perhaps we could borrow a phrase segment from the Hippocratic Oath to use as a foundation that supports any conversation we engage in, and what comes of it: do no harm or injustice.

We can choose words of hate, anger, revenge, arrogance, fear, scarcity, oppression, unkindness, and so on. We can choose words of love, appreciation, compassion, spiritual trust, abundance, kindness, and so on. We can choose to practice improving our conversational skills in ways that open true dialogues and connection and collaboration or cooperation. This has to start with each of us, with the conversations we have with ourselves then with others, to eventually make a difference on a larger scale. It’s a good practice, one you’ll appreciate.            

Practice makes progress.

© Joyce 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

One Way to Get Past Many Fears

All of us come face to face with tasks or choices we feel anxious or fearful about, that perhaps stop us in our tracks. Here’s something you can do to empower your way past them.

Maybe you’ve been in this uncomfortable place: There’s something you need to do or know you should do, or a choice to make, but you hesitate or outright resist it because you’re scared. Likely, the primary thing you’re scared of is being scared. We resist feeling scared because we believe it’s wrong to feel that way; that if we do feel that way, then something must be wrong with or lacking in us. And if something is wrong with or lacking in us, we’re bound to mess up; so we’d prefer to avoid the matter entirely, rather than address the cause of the fearful or anxious feeling.

This involves a number of other fears, as well: Being embarrassed, thought less of, or humiliated (including about feeling scared, even though everyone feels scared at times). Who wants to willingly volunteer for THAT kind of experience?! We may also be scared about the outcome, or scared about what might or will be required of us after we make a choice.

What’s listed here, or any similar concerns you may think of, seem like pretty good reasons (to our ego-aspect) to avoid any or all action, which includes making choices, so we might avoid the thing or things we fear might happen, or might prove “true” about us, or the feelings that are unwanted. But, then a whole other set of thoughts and feelings happen as a result of avoidance, don’t they? And these can feel even worse than the ones we initially feared.

What can you do about this? You can have this conversation with yourself: “Even though I feel fear or anxiety about this matter, is there anything or anyone, including my well-being, involved here that I truly or deeply care about? If my answer is yes, is the care stronger than the scare?”

We get caught up in or blocked by the scare aspect and miss the important care aspect. A strong level of care is a powerful motivator. More care than scare creates different feelings in you, empowering feelings or, at least, intention and commitment. These two questions can help you identify your level of care or investment, or identify what is and is not appropriate for you.

If or when you find there is something or someone you care about more than you’re scared about regarding a particular matter, including care about you, you’ll find it far easier to figure out a right action (or next step) and to take it, than you could imagine while being in scared-mode only. It’s even possible that nothing will stop you from taking right action, not even fear, if your level of care is deep enough.

 

When you care enough about something or someone, including yourself, you may find that you won’t feel good about yourself unless or until you take a right action, whatever else happens. Theodore Roosevelt said: “In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.”  Although, those who practice spirituality or metaphysics would offer that there are times when it’s best to do nothing until you are clear about what you must or choose to do. And, you can always do something at the inner level.

When you identify with something you really care about regarding a person, yourself, or a specific matter, you do what needs to be done. You find the will and the way. And if you feel nervous or anxious, you do it anyway. You can do things that scare you and release most or all of your fear about doing it whenever the real or potential greater needs of another (or your needs) are put before your need to not feel scared. Notice I didn’t say to put others’ needs before yours, but before your need to avoid feeling fearful or anxious.

This Q&A with your self is intended to reveal head-and-heart alignment about your level of care as the result of the questions, not so you convince yourself that you “should” do something that you’re not in alignment with. You serve no one if your choice or chosen action invalidates or fragments you in any real way; and only you can know this about yourself.

Decades back, I went to a monthly meeting that was held in a fair-size room, though attendance was usually 10 to 15 people. I walked in and saw about 100 chairs positioned in a semi-circle across from a table with 3 chairs behind it. The 100 chairs were filling fast, and I wondered what was going on. The director approached me and said, “Thank goodness you’re here. I planned a 3-person panel today, and one of them can’t make it. Would you please take her place?” It was about two minutes to start-time. There was no time for me to do any kind of real preparation. But she needed a third person and believed my perspective would contribute to the dialogues she hoped would happen.

It was an adoption triad meeting, meaning attendees included anyone in a relationship with an adoptee, was an adoptee, had adopted, or was a birth parent or birth family member. At that time I was married to an adoptee who’d decided to search, or rather had asked me to do the search because of his fears about it. The director asked me to speak about this.

I took my seat at the table and looked around the room. The realization that at least one person there probably needed to hear what I would say pushed most of my fear out of the picture. I’d speak about what I knew, based on my experiences, and hope that it benefitted someone.

The other two speakers went before me, and they each received one or two questions from attendees. Then it was my turn; and with no notes to assist me, I shared what I felt were the relevant parts of my story that they might appreciate hearing. I got lots of questions; and after the meeting, one man said it was as though I had repeated his story, that I had expressed how he, as an adoptee, felt.

I could have let my scare outweigh my care that day and refused the director’s request to be on the panel, because the thought of public speaking made me nervous, not to mention my concern that they wouldn’t like what I said or that I’d do a bad job of it. Putting care before scare allowed me to contribute something of value and make a difference for others.

How many ways might you make a positive difference in your personal, professional, or vocational life if the care outweighed the scare? What kind of difference might you experience at the inner level because of this? How might how you feel about you be different? How might your life be different?

Many times care vs. scare does involve others, but it always involves you. You are the constant in your life and experiences. The next time you face a task or choice that you feel anxious or fearful about, ask yourself if there’s anything or anyone involved, including you, which causes the care aspect to be stronger than the scare aspect. If there is, or if there isn’t, let this fuel your motivation to right choices and right actions, and always in ways validating and appropriate for you. It’s a good practice, one you’ll appreciate.          

Practice makes progress.

© Joyce Shafer

Do You Suffer the Effects of Lack of Appreciation aka When Will Enough Ever Be Enough?

Do you wake, go through your day, and go to bed thinking about all the “not-enoughs” about you and in your life? How’s that working for you?

Every day we think, on our own (as well as get hammered by others and the media), thoughts of how we don’t have enough or aren’t enough. How many of these kinds of thoughts have you had today: I’m not physically shaped “right” enough, attractive enough, financially set enough, successful enough, clever enough, creative enough, knowledgeable enough, confident enough, spiritual enough, empowered enough, physically or emotionally strong enough, and so on? What, today, did you think you don’t have or aren’t enough of? Were these thoughts new ones, different from ones you had yesterday and, perhaps, the day or days (weeks, months, years) before, or more of the same?

Einstein said, “Your imagination is your preview of life’s coming attractions.” None of us use our imagination, that is, entertain thoughts of not-enough because we enjoy it. We do this because it’s the model we grew up with and live with, are spoon-fed daily, so to speak. Buckminster Fuller said, “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” Though this makes sense to us when we consider it, and definitely works better than the long, drawn-out inner and outer battles we’re accustomed to, it can also feel counterintuitive, like going against “the norm.” We’ve been conditioned not to do that; we’ve been conditioned to be like everyone else so we can fit it. (I comment more on “fitting in,” in a moment.)

Any form of not-enough thinking usually puts us into a scarcity mindset. And this bumps right into Law of Attraction’s “like attracts like.” This mindset invites all manner of “like” into our lives: more fearful scarcity thoughts that feel as though they’re actually happening in that very moment (because our body doesn’t know they aren’t), more scarcity experiences, more of the very things we don’t want more of, and especially, don’t want to feel.

Something we forget when in the midst of unpleasant emotions is that the more we feed them with our thoughts, the more they multiply or amplify in quantity and quality. The very thing we need to do, on all levels and as soon as we’ve given some time to honor what we feel, is calm ourselves, which also feels counterintuitive because of the models we learned and copied. Researcher and author Brene Brown defines calm as “…creating perspective and mindfulness while managing emotional reactivity.”

Part of what’s contributed to this not-enough or fear about not-enough mindset being such a challenge to move beyond is that others have “suggested” (or insisted) that unless we and our life experiences are super-sized, we’re just ordinary, and that ordinary is bad. But, is it really? Some, if not nearly all, of our most cherished moments and memories are the ones those “others” would consider ordinary. We’re told we must live extraordinary lives; and we nod in agreement, hungry to be labeled something other than that bad word: ordinary. Extraordinary means outside the usual. Are moments truly extraordinary in themselves, or are they extraordinary because of how we perceive them? Just as one man’s junk is another man’s treasure, so it is with determining how ordinary or extraordinary moments are: it’s as individual a determination as we are individuals. This means you could view every moment as extraordinary, or not.

What kind of strain are you under right this moment because “they” (meaning anyone who isn’t you) don’t think you and your life are super-sized or extraordinary enough, and you believe them? What would you have to do to make your life fit their requirements? So many are overworked, overscheduled, and exhausted because of this. Even worse is that we’ve allowed ourselves, from our not-enough mindset, to consider being stressed in these ways a symbol of how worthy others should deem us, or how we are to measure our self-worth, which, in this model, more often than not, never measures up and never will. Anxiety happens because of this.

We are designed to cope with moments of anxiety, but as intervals that happen to us all, not as a way of life. When anxious, we are triggered in one of two ways: we over-function (become overly active and micromanagers) or under-function (become less competent for a period of time). What would assist both responses is to re-mind ourselves about how much there IS to appreciate, before or so we can respond outwardly in ways appropriate for us. We hunger for more so we can escape feelings of not-enough, when the reality is that more appreciation of ourselves, what we have, and what we can do would not only feed that hunger, but provide a feast for us, with dessert! And it wouldn’t provide just one feast; life would be an ongoing banquet we partake of.

What might you find if you let go of a scarcity or not-enough mindset? You might discover what enough work, enough rest, enough play, enough spirituality, enough physical or emotional strength, enough knowledge, enough money, enough of anything is for YOU – in EACH moment. Because each moment is the only one you ever have. Do you have enough or are you enough for the moment you’re in, and only that moment (as opposed to a future moment you can build toward), is a question that would serve you. If you ask yourself this question in each moment, more often than not, you’ll find you are or do have enough to be or do what you choose to or need to in that exact moment.

Part of this scarcity or not-enough mindset is competitiveness that has been conveyed to us as “Be like everyone else, but better,” as Brown wrote in her book, The Gifts of Imperfection. This puts us into comparison mode; and comparing ourselves to others in order to feel we’re enough and to satisfy others first and ourselves last, keeps us in a frustrating vortex of never good enough. We are also frustrated because of the mixed message we receive: fit in AND stand out. And, we aren’t quite sure how to do both well and at the same time.

One solution is to let go of worrying about what others think or will. But this scares anyone trapped in the not-enough vortex. Who are we or will we be if the opinions of others aren’t our measuring stick? Who, indeed? Besides, it’s a risk for many to let go of concern about what others will think, because we risk revealing our vulnerabilities, which may result in being ridiculed. That can be a terrifying proposition. It isn’t our preferred way to stand out from the crowd. It’s also scary because, as the saying goes, “No man is an island.” By nature, and need, we are social beings who rely on others in many ways. To secure our place in whatever society, group, or family network we find ourselves within, we make every effort to fit in. Fitting in may mean denying your authenticity, your truth, that you’re enough or have enough in the moment you’re in, because one rule of “the game” is that, as players, we must always be discontent with who and where we are and what we have, and make enough noise about this so that others calling the shots can see that we really are in the game, really are trying to fit in.

The catch-22 here is that all of this is done so that we can one day feel content about who we are and what we have. The joke is on us in that we can choose to feel this way in any moment. The choice to feel this way is what opens the door for us to the banquet hall of life. We are meant and designed to go for more in life, but as experiences that help us appreciate ourselves and what we create and life even more, not so that others can or will approve of us, or to justify our existence or worthiness.

What would you and your day be like if instead of feeding yourself a steady stream of “not-enoughs,” you nurtured yourself with appreciation for who you are, what you have, what YOUR dreams and intentions are and your ability to fulfill them – for the experiences and how these expand and enhance you and your life in ways appropriate for you? You’d become your own measuring stick, your own approval committee, your own voice of reason and purpose.

In the “I am and have enough for this moment” mindset, you realize that if you have two dollars in your pocket and need or want to buy something that costs eighty-nine cents plus tax, you not only have enough, but extra. It isn’t wrong to know or feel that you’d also appreciate having five dollars or more in your pocket; but feeling you aren’t enough or don’t have enough because it’s two dollars at this time (even though it’s really all you need at this precise moment) can send you into the vortex. Enter this vortex every time or enough times, and you find yourself stuck in there. The only way to leave the vortex is with your thoughts, which is how you got there in the first place. Because even if you win the lottery, your mindset will still be what it is. You could have millions and still not feel you are enough or that you’ll ever really have enough. What you have is never, ever who you are. Like Dorothy in “The Wizard of Oz,” the empowering ruby slippers have always been on your feet. All you have to do is click them together and believe, “There’s no place like home,” home being your authentic self that holds the power of choice for you and your life.

Brown wrote that she and her family created an “ingredients list for joy and meaning.” This was a challenge because the list initially had desired goals, accomplishments, and achievements listed rather than things like more family play and together time, time for real rest and relaxation, or time to nurture creativity. They quickly realized that the initial list was more about how to get more so they could spend more, not about how they could create more joy, meaning, and free time in their overscheduled lives. What would be on your list for joy and meaning, and what would you do to make it so?

Perhaps we don’t need to find better ways to manage ourselves within our anxieties about the not-enough demands put on us by others and ourselves, but a way to eliminate some of those demands so we reduce or eliminate some of the anxieties that have become second-nature. Perhaps it’s time for us to create a new model for ourselves, one that supports us just as we are in each moment, as well as our choices to expand ourselves and our experiences in ways meaningful, fulfilling, and joyful for us. A new model that embraces the priceless value of ordinary moments, as well as those that feel a bit extra special because of the experiences we had in them, and not just because of any tangibles that may have resulted. In this new model, we decide in each moment what enough means to us. We decide to appreciate who we are as much as we appreciate breathing. It’s a good practice, one you’ll appreciate.        

Practice makes progress.

© Joyce Shafer