Life has been busy for me… much is changing, right along with the season.

I dedicate this entry to the topic of change… and the power we all have to embrace change, and navigate our way to better and better choices along the way.

I wrote a private journal entry the other day that contained the phrase “Compass of Joy”.

For those of you familiar with Abraham-Hicks emotional scale, it is like that - except, for me, it helps to not think of it as a top down list. For me, that can stir up judgments… and what a waste that can be. So it helps me to see it as a continuous circle — and I can choose which direction I want to go in by simply looking at which way the arrow points.

In this analogy, the arrow is the way you feel.

It means having enough awareness and honesty with oneself to simply say “I am bored”, or “I feel enraged”… with no judgment. No “shoulds” attached.

That is the look down at the compass. From there, I can say with ease - oh - I am heading towards boredom right now, or I am heading towards anger. Let’s adjust course.

From there - you either know already, or have to ask yourself - where do I want to go? Where do I want to be headed?

My resounding answer - at this stage in my life - is simple, sweet and 100% spirit guided: JOY.

Ok… so let’s see where I am at… right now, I am heading for boredom… to get to Joy, I need to turn towards Contentment. Nice and easy now…. here we go… bored? Who’s bored. This is the sweet life. I am right where I need to be… all is well. Deep breath. Yes. This is good.

Whoa… what’s that? Feel that change? Feels good. The shift. Turning my attention. Intentionally. Almost makes me feel…. hmmmm, what’s this new feeling? Hopeful! Yes. This makes me feel rather hopeful. Oh - I am still new at this navigation thing, let me look at my compass… don’t want to get lost again. Wow - what do you know! I headed towards Contentment and just like that, I swung towards Hopefulness! Cool.

See how that works?

Nice and easy.

It is fun, not work. You can think of it as play. You are captain of your ship.

What kind of ship are you running, anyways??? Who’s your crew? What’s your destination?

Mine is Joy.

I travel there as often as I can these days.

The Game

Wow.

So while distracted by the temporary flurry of activity going on in my personal life, I have missed some truly wonderful things happening here at my own site!

A friend, Cardin Routh at OptimistLab, has kicked off an interesting game called “The High Vibes Game“.

It’s a simple, fun and friendly five step game of Tag on the web. A way to get to know other like minded bloggers, and share the vibes, and share the love!

The rules of the game are explained here.

Why I love it

What I love about this game is how well it is aligned with the original intentions behind the High Vibe It site.

I think of the site as an engine that might act almost like a satellite dish. As we all point and bounce our positive intentions and words and ‘high vibes’ at it, and as others come and vote and comment on stories… it just seems that what will emerge over time will be even more powerful and positive intentions and uplifting energy.

With that, I send much gratitude to Cardin Routh at OptimistLab.

Tag Away!

A resounding theme I am very attuned to in so much of what I am learning right now is around the idea of Choice.

Choice = Freedom = Power

I really appreciated this post I came across today titled ‘Negativitis’ cripples the human spirit… which arrives at the same idea I am running into everywhere right now - the Power of Choice.

Life is absolutely dynamic.

I remember now the teachings of Heraclitus, which I was drawn to some twenty years ago…

“We both step and do not step in the same rivers. We are and are not.”

Of course, this is just one translation - but the idea that stuck with me from his teachings was about the dynamic nature of all of life, and that we are all one and utterly unique all at once.

The theme of the river is also resonating highly with me right now. The power of the river is in its flow. During the harshest cold of winter, the waters of a mighty river seem last to freeze, if they freeze at all.

The motion is life. Just as we are in motion, until our bodies stop working - we are alive when we are in motion and in the flow of life. The more we are in the flow, the more we are alive.

To hold on to yesterday is to try to stay still in the flow, or to hold back the flow of life.

There are many ways of expressing this same idea - in the flow. To some, it is being in “The Zone”, to others, it is being in “The Now”. But no matter how you look at it, the core experience is to:

• let go of the old story, and the drama associated with it
• feel connected to the physical world around you here and now
• not occupy your mind with the creation of future scenarios

How you get there is up to you:

• Prayer
• Exercise
• Yoga
• Meditation
• Music - listening, making, dancing
• Add your own way here :)

Regardless of how you find your way to the Present moment, there is an almost immediate reduction in stress and fatigue. A playful spirit arrives. The Universe opens up. Where you may have felt constrained, you now feel free.

And it all starts with you. It is your choice.  Just as your drama is your creation, your response to your situation… you can likewise simply accept your reality, and choose to let go of your mental constructs… think of the stories you have told yourself over and over… and let them go.

Visualizing this process is a powerful way to move in this direction. Envision yourself standing in the river holding all of your stories close to you… they are a cluttered mess of branches and leaves, things floating by you in the river that you have clung to, and now - the water swirls around you and your mess… and you are stuck there in your place as life passes you by. Eventually, you identify with your place in the river, rather than as being part of the river.

When you are ready - you choose to let go. Envision yourself taking apart your clutter bit by bit, with loving kindness… you take this branch and that leaf and hold them out into the river and release them. Watch yourself in your mind as you let go.

You become lighter. You free yourself from the mental clutter of your life.

And next thing you know, you will begin to sense a lot of good things coming your way.

You may be tempted to grab hold of the first best thing you see and cling to it - but as the good comes into your life, let it go too.

Give back everything you get, and you are sure to be getting more.

Your free will is your greatest gift, and the source of all your power. Give it away, and you will feel powerless. Embrace your power, you will feel free.

Have you found yourself asking… Does this Law of Attraction stuff really work? How does it work?

If so, I would like to pose a couple of other questions to you…

1. What do you have to lose to try it?

2. Why do you care about how it works?

As word spreads about the site, and new members sign up, I am still a primary contributor to the high Vibe it site. The topic of interest to me these days has been the Law of Attraction material. As I read up, it still amuses me how much hype there is pro and con surrounding the movie The Secret.

I am also struck by the number of extremely judgmental and hyper-critical posts and commentary on the topic. The comments seem to fall into a few broad categories… (this is where I get to be extreme and judgmental* :)

* note: - I am responding here to comments I have come across in blogs… I am not judging whole segments of the population at large…

1. I am a scientist, or a “believer” in science. Your voodoo is not scientific, therefore, it must be rubbish. And, by the way, you are stupid for thinking these things. We all know science answers all of the important questions in life, and if science can’t prove it, then you might as well be worshipping the tooth fairy as far as I am concerned.
2. I am a Christian… and we Christians know that JC is the ONLY way to salvation and heaven. You “Secret” people are a scary, scary materialistic cult that wants nothing but money, money, money. Therefore you must be evil. I think the devil might even be behind the Secret. (You could write a variation of this item for each religious tradition.)
3. Then there are the people that consider themselves already so enlightened about the misery inherent in existence that it just plain strikes them as absurd that anyone could suggest otherwise.
4. To be fair, I believe there are people who have evolved their own sense of things to the degree that they are already quite liberated from the common baggage that life brings with it. These individuals have no need to understand a different system because theirs already works just fine, thank you very much. I also believe that these individuals can thrive in a multitude of belief systems, and function well within the confines of long standing traditions.

Well friends, if I were to put on my Law of Attraction colored glasses - I would see that everyone that falls into the above categories are correct! That’s right… their opinions match the world they live in. The world they live in is created by their thoughts about that world. For some, it works very well. For others, life is nothing but a constant stream of conflict and failure. In other cases, it’s just a mixture that appears to be randomly served up by existence… sometimes good, sometimes hard.

This reminds me of the Dr. Wayne Dyer quote:

“Loving people live in a loving world. Hostile people live in a hostile world. Same world.”

If any of this critical thinking about The Law of Attraction concerns you, I would offer up a few ideas to stir the pot o’ thoughts in your noggin…

1. Many of the critics are responding to “The Secret”, and what’s more… some of them haven’t even seen it, and are simply reacting to and resisting the hype and the media treatment of the movie. From what I understand, The Secret is a highly marketed and simplified version of some of the teachings of The Law of Attraction. It does not deal with the complex issues. No movie could deal with these complexities in a period of a couple of hours. Also, keep in mind that The Secret is new. The Law of Attraction is anything but.
2. The Law of Attraction is many things to many people. This really bothers some people. It makes perfect sense to me. Abraham-Hicks teaches that their interpretation of TLOA is just one interpretation, and encourage everyone to find the interpretation that makes the most sense to them. This is radical… in that it directs the individual to trust themselves above organized institutions… that is to say, trust their real selves… their higher power, inner-self, inner being. Many of the critics seem very afraid of this concept. I think this fear is based on deeply held beliefs that people are inherently weak, stupid, sinful, or whatever other negative term you want to throw in there. The teachings I have tuned in to from the Abraham-Hicks material align much more closely with the idea that we are born as inherently good beings, and then we allow ourselves to become negative.
3. Like any belief based system, you have to believe in order to get the benefits of the system. Critics, by definition, are not believers. Of course they don’t see the benefits.
4. The teachings of The Law of Attraction will manifest in alignment with the belief system of the person receiving the teachings. What does this mean? It means that if a Christian has an open mind, and hears the message, this person is likely to benefit and actively, deliberately CREATE a more Christian life. If a person who is focused on the material plane of life listens and absorbs the message, this person will find greater happiness, and greater material prosperity. How is this different from any belief system??? It’s not.

So, let’s revisit the questions with which we began…

Does this Law of Attraction stuff really work?

I have yet to come across very many voices that have given it a real chance and walked away convinced that there is nothing to it. What is more common is to find people who have studied and worked with it for years, and have evolved their thinking and understanding well beyond the messages being broadcast by The Secret movie.

How does it work?

You will find many answers to this question on the web, and all around you. I believe the variety of answers to the How question directly correlates to the wonderful diversity of life experience and thought systems present in the people that come to experience the benefits of this way of thinking.

My response is to restate these questions:

What do you have to lose to try it?

If you are an open minded person, and looking for ways to extend your mind and spirit… you have nothing to lose. There are processes you will learn that will benefit you for a long time to come… whether you work with this material for one week or one year. Despite the attempts by the media to find a new boogie man here, there is nothing inherently risky, damaging, or destructive in the teachings of The Law of Attraction.

An honest dive into this material will bring to you more self-awareness and more self-knowledge. Those are always benefits according to my world view :)

Why do you care about how it works?

If you reason for caring is fear based, you might want to take a closer look at that fear first.

If you are worried about what others will think, or afraid it will take you places you don’t want to go… these are very self-limiting fears and constraints. You might find some relief from these constraints in the teachings of The Law of Attraction. You will certainly benefit from these teachings to a far greater degree if you set yourself free from these constraints early in the process.

The bigger point here is - why does it matter how it works, so long as it works? Of course, what it means “to work” will be different for everyone.

As my father always said “if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it”. I believe that trying to answer the How question is trying to fix a problem we haven’t really yet identified.

To borrow from the Abraham-Hicks teachings… do you really care how the water gets to your faucet when you are thirsty? Stop and think for a minute about the amazing variety and number of things we do each day as inputs into systems - the mechanics of which we don’t really understand.

So, How Does the Law of Attraction work?

Ok… let’s say you still want to know what I think about this question.

I’ll preface my answer with three important notes…

1. My primary teachers on the topic of Intention and The Law of Attraction have been Dr. Wayne Dyer, Deepak Chopra, and the Abraham-Hicks material.
2. My thinking is also heavily influenced by my exposure to the teachings of Christ, A Course in Miracles, and my training in college studying psychology and philosophy.
3. Like you, I am always learning… my answer tomorrow will be slightly different from my answer today.

I tend to believe we have this thing I’ll call the brain-mind. The brain, from what I can tell, is a highly evolved and complex organ capable of reflection upon itself, and as such… is capable of reflecting on the nature of the Universe. Where the physical brain meets this element of self-awareness which is a 100% mirror of awareness of “other”… this is the brain-mind. Or, if you suits you better, you can call it the mind-brain :)

I tend to think of The Law of Attraction works by teaching us how to better use our brain-mind. It changes the focus. It helps us understand our point of Power… which is the Choice we have each and every moment.

Choice = Freedom = Power

It helps direct us to the Moment, where all possibilities unfold.

It liberates us from our self-created drama. Drama requires time. A past, and a future. The Now is drama free.

It reminds us that life is inherently Joyful. Our very existence is a demonstration of Abundance in the Universe. There is Joy in Being. To quote Abraham-Hicks… this is why we are called human beings, not human doings.

How The Law of Attraction works is by teaching the brain-mind to recognize patterns of how things work inside and outside of itself, and by teaching it how to use it’s own energy more efficiently, effectively, and in a way that is inherently more Joyful.

But don’t take my word for it. Give it whirl. Have some fun. Enjoy the journey!

Take a look at the high Vibe it site for more on the topic of The Law of Attraction. Have resources you’d like to share? Please submit them here for the benefit of others!

I came across a post today reviewing a comment Deepak Chopra apparently made on the Bill Maher show the other night about how Positive Thinking is stressful because the person who is always thinking positively is working so hard to avoid negative thoughts… or some such thing. If I stumble across the quote, I’ll come back and post it here.

What interested me most on this was that I felt negative emotions reading it.

What the teachings of Abraham-Hicks say to me is this - use your emotional guidance system to get in alignment with the thing that causes you problems.

I do not believe the Law of Attraction teaches us to never think or deal with a negative thought. However, it does teach that dwelling on negative thoughts is bound to have a negative effect on your life - but this does not mean that your aim is to have a 100% perfect life - indeed, they explicitly state that life is all about desire and learning, and you will never be perfect or arrive at perfection.

So the negative emotions I felt were because of a conflict between different beliefs - on the one hand, I believe Deepak Chopra is a wise man who “gets it”, and on the other hand, I have personally witnessed the Power of positive thinking, and believe that following some of these principles leads to a far less stressful life.

I could have chosen to ignore Deepak… but that is not the goal. The goal is to come into alignment - not to run off and put one’s head in the sand and ignore all negative things.

And thankfully, after a short while pondering this conflict in beliefs, I arrived at a much clearer understanding of what I mean by positive thinking, which brought me to understand that it is not the same thing that Deepak was referring to at all.

To me, the choice of thinking about things more positively when that choice is present is simply about being in the moment and going with the flow. When you are going with the flow, you are in synch with the world around you. Things resonate with you. You are NOT resisting that which is.

When you are fighting reality, you are experiencing negative emotions. It is very easy to cling to negative emotions. It is also easy to cling to positive emotions. So it is equally important to LET GO of either kind of emotion… so as to remain in the flow and aware of that which presents itself you in each moment.

Thinking Positively is simply the adoption of the tendency towards positive emotions - such as gratitude, kindness, and love. When you develop these habits, you are paving the way for more Positive moments… and you can let go of each knowing more good moments will come… and when you hit a bad moment, you are still OK, because after all, you realize more good moments are bound to come your way.

It is a way of experiencing the abundance of life that is already in you, and all around you.

If someone picks up the idea that the goal in life is to think and experience only positive emotions and thought, then this person would surely set out to control his or her experience, and may indeed expend a good deal of energy resisting negative thought.

And so here is the trick - resisting negative thought IS negative thought.

I have been very attuned lately to this issue of resistance. In my humble opinion, it is tied to the teachings of Christ. Jesus famously taught us to “turn the other cheek”. Much could be written on this topic… but fundamentally, I believe the teaching is a way of letting us KNOW that when we resist or fight back - we are matching the wave length of the attacker, we are becoming the attacker, and in the end, we are committing the same sins.

My interpretation of Thinking Positively means shining a light on life. It means bring my best to every moment and every situation. It does not mean I ignore the negative. It means I bring my best to the negative.

I am reminded of the Prayer of St. Francis:

Lord, make me a channel of thy peace;

that where there is hatred, I may bring love;

that where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness;

that where there is discord, I may bring harmony;

that where there is error, I may bring truth;

that where there is doubt, I may bring faith;

that where there is despair, I may bring hope;

that where there are shadows, I may bring light;

that where there is sadness, I may bring joy.

Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort than to be comforted;

to understand, than to be understood;

to love, than to be loved.

For it is by self-forgetting that one finds.

It is by forgiving that one is forgiven.

It is by dying that one awakens to eternal life.

Amen.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

* After thinking these things a bit today, I also stumbled across an article that gave much greater clarity to some of the different ways Deepak Chopra considers Positive Thinking… I have posted this article to the high Vibe it site here. If you like this article and would like others to see it, be sure to click the “high Vibe it” text under the vibe counter. This will elevate it in the various story lists on the high Vibe it site.