Friday, March 16, 2007

Getting from here to.....here

I’ve been thinking about.....

Everything is easy!

I realized a week or two ago that “everything is easy”, and that that was a big change for me. I mean, for most of me life I’ve been thinking, “Everything is tough, but dammit, I’m going to overcome it all and win!” My Dad’s illness and death were tough. My social issues at school were tough (certified nerd here). My brother’s death was very, very tough. Struggles in my career (which I realized afterwards came from both the pressure of a genius father, and post-traumatic stress syndrome in the wake of family tragedies) were tough. Difficult personal relationships were tough. Healing myself from the fear of happiness so that I could finally get married at 40 was tough. Being told I was infertile and overcoming that was tough, and required great willpower. Weird financial issues and tension over how we live have been tough. Being told I was menopausal at 47 was tough.

And through all these things, I’ve found myself looking at others who seemed, without struggle or any particular effort, to have what to me were charmed lives. They had several children, with whom they could stay home if they wished; they and/or their husbands had normal jobs with normal hours which they mostly seemed to enjoy; if their children needed snow clothes or special help with something, they would get whatever it was without having that nagging feeling of “should I really be doing this?”or going without. The year that we had a more standard work situation it was wonderful to be able just arrange services or enrichment programs that ds needed, or go shopping for shoes when I needed them, instead of putting it off and putting it off. I was devastated when that ended (even though I knew it was really for the best), because I had treasured the sense of relief that that had all brought me, and the relaxation and happiness that had come from it. I found myself asking, “WHY does it always have to be so hard for us? Why can’t we just have a regular, OK, normal life? Other people do – I don’t really see any reason why that shouldn’t be us.”

And then I would feel ungrateful for saying that, because after all, we’re so lucky compared to so many. There are many people who are one paycheck away from homelessness, or who have to work long hours and put babies in daycare in order to afford groceries, or who don’t have marketable talents, or can’t get pregnant at all. So I felt, maybe that’s just how it is. Maybe you can’t have everything you want. Wanting more seemed perhaps to be ingratitude.

Discovering The Secret, the Law of Attraction, was a revelation, because it spoke of there being enough for everyone, and that it was worth focusing on your desires because you really can make them come true. It reminded me of the times when I really had, through sincere and passionate flowing of energy, got things I really wanted, and I knew that it was for real. After I began to get the hang of it, and saw the amazing things happening really quickly for both myself and others, and began to understand about inspired action, I realized, yes, “Everything is easy!”But I kept running into enormous resistance from those close to me. It led to some really good growth but it was wrenching every time. On the one hand I felt so happy about what I was learning, on the other it really threw into stark relief how we’d got into trouble in the first place, and why we hadn’t been happy. And I could see things happening that were not attracting what we wanted. Yet whenever I posted about it on MDC, people would ask me gently how I was manifesting this in my life. I found that hard to answer – after all, wasn’t I doing the things I was supposed to be doing, practicing gratitude, believing in the future and changing my life for the better? - and yet the stuff around me seemed to be affecting my ability to use what I knew. I learned to celebrate all of us being where we are, but still....

In the last few days it began to get me down again. Dh seemed to be swirling in an energy of frustration. My Mom said the most inconseqeuntial things, such as “I’m having coffee, do you want some?” or "I think the mail just came," in a tone more suited to “Someone just drowned my pet hamster.” Ds, of course, has been a lightning rod for all of us.So here I was this morning trying to keep hold of my “everything is easy” mantra, and thinking how much easier it would be if I didn’t have to shield myself from stuff going on around me all the time, when it hit me. ONCE AGAIN I have a situation in which I have an enormous challenge - the lack of understanding of, and resistance to (as it sometimes seems), the LoA from everyone in the house – and I’m determined to overcome it!!

How brilliantly ironic!! Yes, I’ve manifested my usual thing again – a great challenge.

OK, enough!!! Everything is easy. I decided to choose that it IS easy!! Not “I have to set my face to the wind, and will soldier bravely on believing it’s easy until it is,” but It. Just. Is!

So this afternoon I decided, dh and I are perfect partners. We vibrate harmoniously in all aspects of our lives. Mom is wonderful, and I love her, and her life’s getting better already. And ds is just fine. He hasn’t fully realized it yet, but everything’s clearing out for him. Today when I saw him getting (briefly) controlling about who was first in line at gymnastics, I felt that familiar tightness in my stomach, the worry for him and frustration, and “why does he have to be difficult” feeling. But then I said, ds is just fine, it’s all flowing in the right direction. And he did. And it is. For all of us, together.

Sunday, March 4, 2007

Gratitude and the LoA

When you read The Secret or watch the movie, there's a lot of talk about gratitude. Many of those featured talk about attracting something by "being in the feeling place of having what you want, feeling the gratitude". It's suggested that we write out lists of the the things we are wanting to attract into our lives, starting...

I am so happy and grateful now that.....

I have life full of love/ I have a million dollars in the bank / I am living in my dream house / I have perfect health

and so on.

It's also suggested that in a realtionship with another person, we focus just on the things we love about them, and be grateful for all those things. Energy flows where attention goes...what you focus on expands...and so on.

I certainly was finding that that brought a great deal of positive energy into my marriage. At one point I was driving home from work and called dh, and we got into a rather tense conversation about The Secret. Now I was already aware that we were not seeing eye-to-eye on all this stuff, but I decided not to get into an argument on the phone. I was wanting to keep up the good vibrations I had been feeling.

So for the rest of the hour that it took me to drive home, I worked on thinking about all the things I love about him. His practicality, and the way he takes care of the house, the taxes, the financial planning....his sense of humor...his intellect and his cultural passions....it took me a while, but by the time I got home I was in an incredible mood! When I walked in I could see the guardedness on his face (because he was expecting that we would argue), which turned into bewilderment when he saw the bounce in my step, and pleasure when I told him how I'd turned my mood around. So that was a very satisfying lesson in the power of gratitude.

But what about when you just can't get there? When you're just too hurt angry to dig out those things you love about him or her from the back of your mind where they accidentally got buried? When even trying feels icky and false?

I had a night like that recently.

Now as I've said, since discovering the Law of Attraction and its implications, I've experienced great healing in my marriage. But it's new, and we still both feel vulnerable. For whatever reason, thee was one evening when we had a discussion that showed that both of us weer still scared of the hurt we'd experienced before. Once again, our differing views on the Law of Attraction became a flashpoint. We kind of made it up, but I felt conflicted and torn in two, and resentful and angry as a result. I couldn't sleep, and I couldn't find the gratitude either. I felt deeply dissatisfied with how the conversation had turned out, and any gratitude I could feel for him was trapped behind that fence of resentment. Here's how it turned out:

Feb 22 '07 [from my journal]

Last night was not pretty. I felt trapped – between following what I know to be true or keeping dh happy. I went to sleep feeling so sad, sadder than I’ve felt since that night in January, and that bleak.

I woke at about 5, on the far side of the bed. I really couldn’t turn my mind to gratitude. I lay there feeling angry and disappointed and betrayed, and that dh had pushed just about every button again that we were supposed to have healed.

So in the end, I thought, well, anyway, this isn’t serving me. If I can’t be happy with him, at least let’s find something else to be grateful for. I’m so grateful...for this bed (how I love that bed! When we were in a good place financially a couple of years ago, we bought the best bed we could find. It amazes me every time I lie down on it). ....That I can feel.....That I’m alive (that got me going – after all, what a miracle, and with it anything’s possible)..... That dh is alive, so there’s still hope for healing here.....That we have a comfortable home....That I just had a long drink of water from a bottle by my bed (an unimagined luxury for half the world)…and so on.

I’m so happy and grateful that I’ve learned about the LoA, and that I know it’s true. I’m so grateful for friends…for the wonderful women who hold me up at MDC.

I began to feel better…I tried again to find the gratitude in the relationship. Couldn’t get there without it feeling icky and false. I felt misunderstood and sad – aha! CONTRAST! (As in, "it's OK to know what you don't want, becasue then you can figure out what you DO want.") OK….I knew I didn’t want to be sad. Better to be in that better place instead,and not be thinking about df and feeling angry…..I want to feel loved and understood. Don’t worry about how, let the universe figure that out.

I’m so grateful and happy that I am loved, understood and appreciated for who I am.

I decided that I would post only that on MDC, and not give energy to the previous night by writing about it. Just….

I’m so grateful and happy that I am loved, understood and appreciated for who I am.

I’m so grateful and happy that I am loved, understood and appreciated for who I am.

OK….now I’m getting there! As an added benefit, I began to able to just kind of see him where he was and not be upset about it.

By this time I was lying on my back, instead of turned away from dh as far as I could…

I’m so happy and grateful that I’m lying here wide awake, because I have time to get up and clean the house and get a good start on the day.

So I got out of bed and went to the bathroom. When I came back dh was awake.

I stood near the bed and explained that I had been awake since 5am because I couldn’t sleep. He asked if it was because of last night.

I said yes, I had been about as unhappy as I could be because I'd felt that just about every button I had had been pushed, but I’d decided to use what I’ve learned to get out of it because I didn’t want to be in that unhappy place, and now I was fine.

Then I sat down to talk to him. I said what I’d really learned from the LoA is that you can decide every minute to be happy, and that I had made that decision, and it had enabled me to see where he was and that was fine, I didn’t need to hold it against him.

He seemed pretty happy about that.

I explained how I’d started by being grateful for the bed, etc.

We ended up holding each other. He said, "Thank you for deciding to be happy." It clearly meant a lot to him. I explained that that was really the most important thing that I’d learned from the LoA stuff.


The beauty of it is that I had just shown him in the most beautiful way what the Secret is really about! Even in the darkest moment, when I thought that he really wasn’t going to get it, all the good attraction I’d previously been doing was bringing us there! When I thought it wasn’t working, it was!
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Now here's what I learned from this.

When I started all this, I thought the gratitude stuff was a good idea! I "got" that it helped you to imagine the feelings of what you want, and to put that good vibration out there. But I also saw it as kind of like homework. You do this, and you qualify to start making things work for you.

What I learned that night, however, is that

Gratitude isn't a prerequisite for the Law of Attraction.

Gratitude IS Law of Attraction in action!!!

When you're in that place of gratitude - whether it's for the bed, your partner, the roof over your head or just the water you're drinking - you're attracting a better and better life to you - however you define that - right now!

There are always things you can feel grateful for. Being alive is a miracle. Sunrise is a miracle. Even loss - we feel loss because we were lucky enough to love whatever we lost. There's always some little thing you can grab on to in order to pull yourself higher, and higher.

I'm so grateful for my wonderful family, and for the fact that I got a few minutes to stop and blog these ideas out here. How about you?

Saturday, March 3, 2007

From the beginning....

Back at the beginning of January, I was in a dark place. Some cherished dreams seemed to have come to nothing, and our lives seemed to be full of stress. Although there was a lot of love in our house, there was also a lot of tension, misunderstanding and disappointment, which affected everyone.

But deep in my heart I knew something had to change. I said to myself that I would find the tools I needed. I didn't realize that I was already manifesting change in my life!

I had seen an online discussion about the movie The Secret. Originally I ignored it (to be honest, I hated the trailer), but then I took a closer look. I also had some interesting discussions with a friend who led what looked to me like a charmed life. She mentioned certain things which resonated with me. I began to rediscover some ideas that had previously had a great impact on my life (I'll post about that too at the right moment). I joined the online discussion at MDC (see below) and began to remember what I had learned years ago from the book "The Power of Positive Thinking", by Norman Vincent Peale. Light was beginning to shine from behind the clouds.

A few days later, realizing that something exciting was happening, I started writing a journal in MSword, so I'd have a record of this amazing journey. I'm going to upload it a bit at a time, starting here.

The first thing that went into it was the following set of affirmations, which I wrote when I began to understand the implications of the LoA.

I am so happy and grateful for the new spiritual freedom I am finding in my life, and the way it is positively impacting everyone in our family.

I am so happy and grateful that we are financially free, and have an abundance of money, so that we are able to have all the time we need to be together as a family, to follow our passions as much as we want, to travel wherever and whenever we want, and to spread this joy abundantly to other people in various ways.

I am so happy and grateful that dh’s health is great, that he is at his ideal weight, and that he is sleeping wonderfully every night and waking up refreshed and energized for his whole day.

I am so grateful and happy for my soulmate, dh, for the renewed joy, love and passion in our relationship, and for the great depth of our spiritual sharing, and for the many layers of connection between us that have become exponentially deeper with this newfound law of abundance, and for the things we share and teach each other.

I am so happy and grateful that ds's’s body, mind and soul are working together and enabling him to unfold and reach the potential of his wonderful gifts. I am so happy for the joy and inner calm that I see in his face. And as always, I am so happy for the wonderful gift of music that we share.

I am so happy and grateful that my Mom feels empowered and is building a happy, interesting and fulfilling life here with us, and that she is experiencing wonderful health and energy, inspiring learning and growth, joyful and fulfilling friendships, and spiritual centeredness.

I am so happy and grateful that we are living in an ideal house for us, surrounded by natural beauty and next to a pond or lake, full of light and natural light wood and beauty, and beautifully organized in a way that makes our lives flow smoothly.

I am so happy and grateful for my blessed little daughter, who has been welcomed with great joy by everyone in the family, and for the beautiful sibling relationship between her and ds.

I am so happy and grateful that I am able to share these blessings and help others to find their power, and that this beautiful energy also cycles round to us in an ever-increasing spiral of abundance.

I added:

I am so grateful and happy that I found these threads on www.mothering.com , for the terrific people who are part of them, and for all that we are all learning from them!!!

(On the spirituality forum at MDC, there has been an explosion of energy! I will be posting links bit by bit to the resouces and sites that the awesome people there have created and collected.)

A few days after I posted those affirmations, I followed up with this:

IT'S WORKING!! IT'S WORKING!!!DH and I are reconnecting incredibly! We are talking about how to rebuild our lives, spiritually and financially.We are clearing up the house and I have a book on Feng Shui requested from the library. Dh about fell off his chair when I told him this - he's always considered me kind of the anti-Christ of feng shui (his words, but he wasn't far off the truth) but I told him we had to make room for all this abundance we're going to be getting. In the meantime we're claening up the air for ds's dust allergies.

I was amazed (and have continued to be) at the effects of consciously (rather than unconsciously) using the LoA!

OK, I will add more to this bit by bit!

Welcome!!!

Welcome to my blog!

I've set up this blog becasue I'm so excited about the changes taking place in my life and I want to share them. We are in the middle of an amazing phenomenon. Excitement about the Law of Attraction is sweeping the world. I'm seeing real people manifesting amazing things in their lives and the energy is staggering.

In the past couple of months, since I really got into this stuff and began to understand the LoA, I've experienced enormous change and healing in my life. My marriage has been transformed. I've cleared out years worth of garbage from my realtionships and my closets (no coincidence!). I have become a far better parent. I'm bursting with energy and excitement, and my professional life has undergone great improvement and change.

I'm part of an amazing online community too, and since January I've seen several women start exciting new businesses, one has discovered an hidden talent and written/producedpublished a book based on it in THREE WEEKS, several have manifested new jobs, moves, improved family situations and so on.

I want to get the word out. I want as many people as possible to experience the joy and healing I'm feeling. I've been keeping a journal of my experiences and will upload and add to them. I will also be posting useful links for all kinds of things related to the LoA, and emotional and spritiual health. I'm so excited to be sharing this with you!