Endings and Beginnings

Today is the end of a year, and also the end of a very turbulent and life-changing decade.  This evening, as we celebrate New Year's Eve with our family and friends, we will be doing so under a full moon ... a blue moon, no less, made even more powerful by a partial lunar eclipse in some parts of the world.  If there was ever a time perfect for leaving old things behind us, this is the day. 

I've been silent here for the past few weeks, healing a body that had collapsed in exhaustion from driving myself too hard.  That way of being, of forcing life to bend to my will, is the number one thing that I will leave behind as I enter this new era.  My intention is to allow God to direct my path from this day forth, and to skip joyfully down the road of life like a little child, amazed and grateful for everything that comes my way. 

Looking back, I realize that while I preach gratitude, my actions and thoughts have been telling a different story.  My constant striving for MORE ... more achievements, more knowledge, more money, more love ... is the exact opposite of what I want for all of you.  If we are truly grateful for what we have, then we see what we have as ENOUGH.  My intention for this next phase of life is to stop striving, and to be content with what I have now, knowing that it is all perfect, just the way it is.  I plan to stop tinkering with my life and instead to just stand still and enjoy it. 

One thing I hadn't planned to give up quite yet is my job at the pool store.  I've enjoyed working there.  I didn't make much money, but it was enough.  I had total freedom to do whatever I thought needed to be done, and over the past year I've turned it into a beautiful, well-run business, and a very happy place to be.  This week, though, I found out that constant low-grade exposure to chlorine gas and other chemicals has harmed my lungs and compromised my liver, doing serious harm to my immune system.  My body, which was strong and healthy a year ago, is now unable to fight off even the smallest virus, and I've been sick with colds since Thanksgiving.  So today, I will let the owner know that I am leaving.  He will be surprised and dismayed, but that is his path to walk. 

This means that I walk into this new year and this new decade with an uncertain future.  But rather than make me afraid, I find that I am excited and exhilarated by the possibilities.  I know that I will be fine, and that whatever money I need will find its way to me.  My plan is to be happy, and grateful, and filled with love for whoever crosses my path. 

I wish the same for all of you.  There are things in your life which no longer serve you.  If ever there was a time to open your hand and let things fly away in the wind, this is the day.  What will you leave behind you as you step into this new year and this new decade?  What burdens will you release so that you can finally be happy, joyous, and free?  What new joys and wonders will you welcome into your life? 

I wish you all a Grateful and Happy New Year, filled with infinite love and gratitude.  

Emotional Healing: or, Why we need pets

I cried today, for no good reason.  I was going along, slow but sure, doing my job, when all of a sudden a huge wave of emotion knocked me down and I suddenly found myself depressed.  Thankfully, December is a very slow month at the pool store, so since I didn't have any customers to deal with, I let myself cry. 

I spent many years depressed.  Suicidal, actually.  Every day I would have to search for reasons to stay alive, because on most days, I woke up determined to end my life.  Every day, I had to mentally search my world for a reason that I should live just one more day.  On most of those days, I stayed alive for my cat, Pearl.  She needed me.  I knew that she would not survive without me.  She was afraid of most people, and I couldn't think of anyone compassionate enough to give her the special care that she required.  And so I stayed, always just for one more day.  This period in my life gives the saying "One Day at a Time" new meaning for me.  Same with "Choose Life."  It means something different to me than what was intended by the bumper stickers.

Pain

Today's blog post is borrowed from Facebook friend Deavon DiPrima.  It was such a beautiful clue that I wanted to share it with you here:

* * *

Once a young man came to a revered teacher, who was seated under a tree near a beautiful lake, and asked for the solution for his unhappiness. After some minutes of conversation the old master kindly instructed the visitor to put a handful of salt in a glass of water and then to drink a few mouthfuls. "How does it taste?" the teacher asked. "Awful," said the apprentice after he had spat out the revolting liquid a few paces away.

Wishes Fulfilled: Wayne Dyer, Part 2

Part 2 of a review of Wayne Dyer's Keynote Speech at the Hay House I Can Do It Conference, Tampa 2009. The ideas are Dyer's, sometimes fleshed out with a few of my own. The following represents what I, personally, took away from that lecture.  This lecture is a prevew to Dyer's Book, Wishes Fulfilled.

In my in my last post,  I shared a synopsis of Wayne Dyer's introduction to his opening keynote at the Hay House I Can Do It Conference in Tampa.  In his opening, Dyer explains that if we want to make our world a better place, we must first change our beliefs about who we are and what is possible for us. If we want to raise the consciousness of our planet, we must first raise our own consciousness to the highest level.

Wayne Dyer at I Can Do It Tampa 2009 - Part 1

Often, when we've been anticipating something for a very long time, the actual receiving of it seems kind of a letdown.  We tend to build things up in our head to such a high level of expectation that no mere mortal can ever hope to deliver.  Sometimes, though, the reality turns out to be even better than we could have ever imagined.  Wayne Dyer gave the opening keynote at Louise Hay's I Can Do It Conference in Tampa, November 20, 2009.  I've been dreaming about hearing him speak live for many years.  I was not disappointed.

He opened by challenging each of us to help raise the collective consciousness of our world.  In order to do that, he explained, we must change the concept we have of our Self.  All in life -- relationships, finances, everything -- is a function of our self-image.  If we want to make our world a better place, we must change our beliefs about who we are and what is possible for us.

Be Where Your Feet Are

For the past few days I've been basking in the luxury of being completely alone.  All of the people who usually share this space with me have gone away to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday elsewhere.  I remained behind, exhausted from overwork, grateful for the chance to catch up on sleep and clean the house.

The cleaning took days, and required quite a few nap breaks.  It's not just that I've been focusing all of my energies outside my home lately.  It is also the fact that I've never really unpacked my things.  I moved in here a year ago.  This is the home where both The Attitude of Gratitude Project and the Prosperity Project were born.  This is the home whose energy was perfect for me to finally begin writing the words that have been swimming around in my brain for decades.  Until this weekend, though, I've never quite allowed myself to feel at home here.  Parts of my spirit have been scattered in homes that exist in other places and in other times.  This weekend I have decided to call back those pieces of myself so that this space in the here and now can finally become my true home. 

Learning to Reconnect With My Body and the Physical World

"One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important."  Bertrand Russell

Life has a beautiful way of teaching us far different lessons than the ones we think we are here to learn.  Have you noticed that?

I spent this past weekend at the I Can Get It! Conference in Tampa, Florida.  I've had my eye on this Louise Hay event every year for the past several years.  I always see it advertised in Andrea de Michaelis's Horizons Magazine, and every year a perceived lack of time and money keeps me away.  Not this year.  This year I cleared my calendar and scraped together enough dollars to make it happen.

Tarot Reading after I Can Get It Conference, Tampa

Tarot images © US Games Systems

 

Three Card Reading:  LEARNING TO RECONNECT WITH MY BODY


Self: Nine of Wands
Main (positional) meaning | General | Position

Exhaustion ruins the ability to make good judgments; find someone who can fill in for you until you are refreshed.

The card in the Self position reveals aspects of how you perceive yourself right now.

When the Nine of Wands is in this position, putting things off and giving yourself some time to rest is important, although it may be psychologically difficult for you to do so. In situations where we think we are irreplaceable, we all too often neglect to give ourselves time to rest and recuperate.

It would be to your advantage to find a competent ally who can fill in for you until you regain your energy. Try to remember that exhaustion impairs the ability to make good decisions, giving negative forces an opportunity to gain an advantage. For the sake of yourself and the entire situation, take a break!

Situation: Judgment - Rejuvenation!

Main (positional) meaning | General | Position

A dramatic wake-up call is getting the attention of your circle.

The card that lands in the Situation position refers to social or circumstantial factors which could be affecting your life at this time.

With the Judgment card in this position, it's as if you and the people around you are coming out of a profound trance. You are gaining greater powers of discernment about the interrelationships that support all life, thus breaking through barriers that formerly divided you.

Looking at everything with fresh eyes, you can re-evaluate current conditions with renewed zeal toward the common good. In this way, you can reclaim your place in the long chain of awakening souls stretching throughout the ages. The circumstances are extraordinary for evoking simultaneous awakening across an entire group. By all means, take advantage of them.

Tarot images © US Games Systems

Challenges/ Opportunities: Two of Pentacles
Main (positional) meaning | General | Position
Stay flexible while the outcome is still unknown.

The card that lands in the Challenges/Opportunities position refers to ways that you can turn obstacles into stepping stones.

The Two of Coins in this position suggests that you stay flexible even when the outcome is still unknown. It's a good time to develop plans for various possible outcomes, both good and bad.

Once you are prepared for any eventuality, you can maintain some serenity even if everyone around you is worried. The best thing to do is stay calm and you will have energy at your disposal for the moment when you can again take action.

What is a Lightworker?

Someone called me a Lightworker a few days ago.  It was very flattering, even though I don't really know what it means.  It just sounds nice:  Lightworker.  I get an image of someone who takes light and uses it to create something new ... kind of like a woodworker, but with light.

When I hear the word, Lightworker, I conjure up images of Leo the Whitelighter in Charmed.  Whitelighters can orb, which is a way of travelling instantly from one place to another in a sparkly white light.  They also have tremendous healing powers.  If I were to choose superpowers, these would be two very cool superpowers to have.  But I'm pretty sure when that person called me a Lightworker, this is not what they had in mind.

Ride the Wave

I'm not really a fan of roller coasters. Other people scream in delight as the bottom drops and they go hurtling down as fast as gravity can pull them.   My boyfriend has a picture of himself with his family on the Kumba roller coaster at Busch Gardens in Tampa.  They all have huge smiles on their faces, with their hair and cheeks blowing straight up.  The one time I rode on a roller coaster, I was screaming in sheer terror, and definitely not having a good time.  I can't seem to just let go and enjoy the ride.

My life has been like that lately, and I've been experiencing much of the same kind of fear.  Things are happening fast, and it terrifies me.  A few months ago, we did the Prosperity Project here on these pages.  During that exercise, I spent quite a bit of time every day visualizing myself earning increasingly larger amounts of money and using that money to fulfill my heart's desire.  I imagined that I earned that money as a writer and keynote speaker, and I imagined how happy I was using that money to support the arts, build an office, and tweak my home space.  The project part of the Prosperity Project was designed to test the theory that if we consistently visualize something for one month, we should see some powerful manifestations occurring in our real world.  They have, and it's kind of freaking me out.

Learning to Love Who You Really Are

I'm a dork.  No, really.  For most of my life I've always been the odd one, the one who doesn't quite fit in.  It used to torment me, wreaking havoc on my already low self-esteem.

When I was a little kid growing up in Auburn, Maine, I was the only kid on my block who came from a French family.  All the other families spoke English.  You wouldn't think that was such a big deal, but then you'd be forgetting how cruel children can be to each other.  Where I grew up, people didn't discriminate on the basis of color -- everyone was white, so it would have been kind of pointless.  They discriminated based on language.  My father knew this, which is why he moved us to an English-speaking neighborhood.  He wanted me to grow up without a French accent so that people wouldn't discriminate against me.  The accent part worked out the way he planned; the other not so much.  Every time I left the house, kids taunted me.  They all played together, because it's the nature of kids to play together.  But when I came around they would send me away.  All except Melissa.  She would beat the holy daylights out of me and send me home crying.  Nice.

Prosperity Project Revisited

When we ran the Prosperity Project here on The New Book of Clues, it was so that we could get some practice in overcoming whatever resistance we might have to receiving abundance from this generous universe in which we live.  Many people, myself included, had difficulty spending all that imaginary money on ourselves.  Somehow it was easier to give it away or spend it on others.  Over the course of 28 days, though, even the most resistant of us finally broke down and allowed ourselves to actually benefit personally from our imaginary prosperity. 

I have since received many letters from other people who were not able to participate in the Prosperity Project because their resistance was simply too great.  There were quite a few people who could not break through their belief that it is somehow wrong to ask God for material things.  Here is one of those letters:

Ten Clues About Dealing With People, from Dr. Phil

This morning I was thumbing through the original Book Of Clues, a tattered old composition book where I used to jot down important clues about life.  I came across this list that I borrowed from Dr. Phil (this was many years ago, before he jumped the shark and out-springered Jerry Springer).  If your life requires that you deal with people at all, these clues will be very helpful.  If you are a manager, sales person or professional business networker, understanding these clues will make you much more effective at your job.

The Duck Wall of Fame

Yesterday I had a party.  It was an open house for the pool store I manage, to celebrate 32 years in business.  I invited all of our customers, who didn't come, as well as my colleagues from the Cocoa Beach Area Chamber of Commerce, who came in droves to eat, drink, and help me be merry.  What made the event extraordinary, however, were the hundreds of little yellow rubber duckies that helped to promote this event. 

I didn't come up with the idea for the Duck Wall of Fame all at once; it kind of evolved over time.  Originally, I had planned to deliver ducks to homes in particular neighborhoods where I would like to capture the swimming pool maintenance market.  I was going to put a little yellow duck on everyone's doorstep, along with a flyer.  Then I realized how annoying that would be.  Cocoa Beach is a small town; if these people wanted to buy my services they would already be here, buying.  The one thing I've learned as a Chamber of Commerce Ambassador is that you don't get new business by pestering people to buy your stuff; you get new business by referrals from other business owners who know and respect you enough to tell their customers about you.

Jumping at Opportunity

When we're in the Vortex, when we're actively aligned with our heart's desire, opportunities come at us fast.  The Universe is always conspiring to give us whatever it is that we focus on most.  When we are eagerly focused on what we want instead of focusing on everything that is wrong with our life, when we are happy and actively working toward our dream, then doors begin to open for us.  It is up to us to be prepared to walk through those doors and to claim our prize.

Opportunity is a funny thing.  It generally comes when we least expect it, and often comes when we're busy doing something else.  Take finding a partner, for instance.  You go through years of dating and wishing, wanting to couple up with someone so badly that it hurts.  Then, when you get busy working on a personal project or finally become contented living on your own, that's when the perfect person tends to show up.  It always seems to happen when we're not actively wanting it.

Budget the Luxuries First

Every now and then we get a teacher who changes our lives.  One such teacher for me was Dr. Charles Micarelli, now Dean and Professor Emeritus of Foreign Languages and Literatures at the University of Central Florida.  I was a foreign language major, and Dr. Micarelli taught several of my classes in both French and Spanish literature.  He was a happy and a kind man, and one of the most brilliant men I've ever known.  Literature classes are all taught in the target language, so we were faced with the double challenge of first understanding the language and then also understanding the literary themes and historical background.  Dr. Micarelli was equally fluent in both languages, and taught me a lot of what I know about how to read literature.  He was the only teacher I ever had who received a standing ovation from the students when he entered the classroom on the last day of the year. 

As all good teachers do, Dr. Micarelli also gave us life lessons.  He was no longer young when I met him, and had lived a wonderfully full life, managing to become wealthy as a college professor by buying up empty land around the campuses where he worked.  Like I said, he was a smart guy.   He told us that even when he was young and struggling financially, he always made it a point to end his day with a snifter of top-shelf brandy and an excellent cigar.  He said that making it a point to enjoy his two favorite luxuries every day, no matter how tight money may have been, allowed him to feel the prosperity that he knew to be his.   It was also a leisurely ritual; during the time it took him to savor his drink and his smoke, he could enjoy the feeling that he had all the time and money in the world.  Dr. Micarelli taught me that life is meant to be enjoyed.  He also taught me that I deserved the best things that money can buy.

He reminded me of one of my favorite fictional characters, Lazarus Long.  In the Robert Heinlein future history series, Lazarus Long is a character who, through some genetic fluke, managed to live 300 years before he had to undergo rejuvenation treatments.  At one point he had been alive for so many centuries that he no longer saw any point in continuing, but the powers that be refused to allow him the dignity of taking his own life.  As the oldest living human ... he was born before World War I and this story takes place thousands of years into our future ... they decide that his memories are far too valuable to lose.  They lock him in a room and have pretty girls and a computer record every single one of his utterances so that they can later be culled for any sayings resembling wisdom.  Of all of the sayings of Lazarus Long, this is the one that I remember most:

BUDGET THE LUXURIES FIRST

Dr. Micarelli did that.  Young college professors do not make much money; but with every single one of his paychecks, he first bought the finest brandy and cigars he could find ... and then he worried about paying the bills.  Because I admired both men ... the fictional character and the teacher of fiction ... I took this advice to heart.  No, I don't drink brandy or smoke cigars, and I'm certainly not advocating an evening ritual that involves alcohol; but I did find my own personal version of brandy and cigars.  I chose one evening ritual that speaks luxury to me, and I have always paid for that first ... before tithing, paying bills, buying food.  And every evening when I sit down to enjoy my chosen ritual,  I still repeat Dr. Micarelli's words.  "Ah, brandy and a cigar!  Makes everything worth it." 

What is your brandy and cigar?  You already know what it is.  You've been thinking about it the whole time you've been reading this.  It is that one guilty pleasure that you simply will not allow yourself to enjoy because it costs too much, and there are far more important things to spend your money on.  The kids need stuff, your bills aren't all paid, you need to save up for that new water heater.  Go ahead ... indulge.  Don't worry that it's frivolous and extravagant.  Choose one ritual that speaks luxury to you, and make it a point to enjoy it every single day. 

We live in an abundantly generous universe.  Yet, sometimes we forget that fact.  We tend to focus on all the things that we don't have, and it stresses us out so bad that we forget to notice all of the abundance that surrounds us every day.  Having a luxurious daily ritual serves to affirm that abundance for us.  It turns out that Dr. Micarelli was more than just a brilliant linguist and professor of literature; he was also a master at the Law of Attraction.  Even when money was tight, his nightly brandy and cigar kept him focused on abundance, so abundance is what he ultimately attracted.  I owe him a great debt for teaching me that.  Here's to you, Dr. Micarelli! 

Finding Clues in Port Charles

I am totally hooked on General Hospital.  For those of you living on the other side of the planet, General Hospital is a soap opera -- a telenovela, to my Spanish friends.  It is a television program euphemistically classified as Daytime Drama.  Soaps, as they are called here in the States, are generally considered trash TV.  They are melodramatic and over the top.

Generally, people start with one soap, and then tend to get hooked on the others being aired on that same channel.  Yes, I've also bled into One Life to Live and All My Children.  When I worked at home there was time to have the TV on for three hours a day.  But keeping up with 15 hours a week of TV shows is like having a part time job, so I had to quit.  These days, I don't have time to watch any TV.  I barely have time to sit down to watch a movie with the boyfriend anymore.  And yet, I can't seem to tear myself away from GH.  Like I said, I'm hooked.

Life Without Doctors: Learning Medical Intuition

Years ago, I fired all my doctors.  There was a time when I was a walking medicine cabinet.  I took pills for everything.  My handbag was always heavy with aspirin, immodium, allergy pills, and of course Xanax, because you never know when a day will turn bad.  I carried Prozac and Luvox, Trazadone and Paxil, plus creams and salves for the rashes and itchies that all those pills caused me.  I spent a fortune on doctors and pharmaceuticals, and yet was sick much of the time.  For most of my life I've been uninsured, so doctors and pharmacists got the bulk of my money.  I ran to the doctor for everything, expecting them to keep me healthy.

Then one day, I became defiantly angry.  I was sick and tired of always being sick and tired.  I decided to take back my own medical power, and began to learn to take responsibility for my own health.  I signed up for an herbalist certification course and learned to make my own medicines out of the roots, stems, and leaves of common plants.  I threw away all of my pills.

As Pearl Lay Dying

I've been looking for a book for a few days.   It's called, Now Boarding:  Next Stop Your Remarkable Life, by Kandee G.  Kandee G sent it to me herself; it's autographed and everything.  I've been reading it, planning to use it as a source book for an article I'm working on.  I remember the last time I was using it, and even remember where I set it down.  But it seems to be nowhere in this house.

As I usually do when things around the house come up missing or have been left undone, I asked the cat about it.  Pearl spends all day inside this house, hanging about like cats do.  She knows everything that happens.  She's a cat.  But then I remembered that there is no cat.  Pearl died a few weeks ago, and I sometimes forget that she's no longer here.  She was with me for over 16 years, and I'm not quite accustomed to having to do things without her.

At Home In the Muddy Water

-Do you have the patience to wait till your mud settles and the water is clear?  (Lao-Tzu) 

Life is complicated. Have you noticed?

When we first start out along our spiritual path, most of us do so partially because we secretly hope that if we become more spiritual, if we are more in tune with our true selves, if we are walking in the will of God, that life will become easier.   We envy monks who get to live in seclusion, because they can practice undistracted by screaming kids and mind-numbing jobs and the demands of spouses and colleagues.  We long for a time when we can remove ourselves from life's messiness so that we can concentrate on being more spiritual and centered. 

The Wisdom of Doing Nothing

Sometimes, the most productive thing that we can do is to do nothing at all.

We are always in such a hurry to do the next thing, especially those of us with dreams and ambitions and goals. We've got some place to go, and we know that the only way to get there is to keep making progress. So we push on. My brother and I have a saying about this that cracks us up. It is a syllogism, an illogical statement couched in terms of logic:

I must do something.

This is something.

Therefore, I must do this.

 Sure, it's easy to laugh now, while you're sipping coffee in your big puffy chair; but when you're in the midst of a critical moment, when you're just certain that what you do next will make or break you, it's easy to forget that sometimes it really is better to do nothing at all.

What If God Really Was One Of Us?

Sooner or later, we all have to deal with the God issue.  It is amazing to me that so many people today who are walking a spiritual path avoid ever actually talking about God.  I do it myself.  When I write, I will say that Spirit answered my call, or that the Universe is looking out for me.  Rarely will I come right out and say the word God.  It is a word infused with way too many conflicting meanings, and I don't want my readers to have to deal with all of that confusion right in the middle of my article.  I want them to actually hear my message.  It is the same reason that AA uses the term higher power.  No matter where we stand on the God issue, even if we are not addicts or alcoholics, coming to terms with the concept of a higher power is a necessary step on our spiritual path.

A Butterfly By Any Other Name

Yesterday, in the Living Gratitude Blog, I wrote about being willing to let go of the past so that we can be free to grow.   I used the metaphor of the butterfly, who cannot be born without killing off the caterpillar that came before her.  For many years, I have claimed the butterfly as my animal spirit.  A butterfly flits about from flower to flower to gather her own nourishment; in the process, as a by-product, she helps to pollinate those flowers, thereby ensuring that she will continue to have food in the future. 

Which Came First: Consciousness or Light?

Sometimes on Facebook we talk about more than just what's for dinner.  Last night, pal Andrea de Michaelis of Horizons Magazine posted a question, and then promptly went down for a nap in her Big Puffy Chair.  The question was, Which Came First -- Consciousness or Light?

Good question, Andrea! 

Several people chimed in with a guess at the answer.  Most of us suggested that consciousness must have come first.  As students of the Law of Attraction, it only seems to make sense.  Consciousness is a creative force.  The creation myth in Genesis says that God (supreme consciousness) created light by speaking it into existence.  "Let there be light!" he decreed; and there was light.

Focus: Why Lasers are So Powerful

I had a fascinating discussion last night with a master networker.  So fascinating, in fact, that long after it was over I couldn't stop thinking about what I had learned from it.  Have you ever had one of those moments where you learned something so profound that you suddenly realized that until this moment you had pretty much just been throwing sand in the wind?  Last night's discussion was like that.  Instead of sleeping, which is what I really, desperately, needed to be doing, I lay awake thinking about ways I could implement what I had learned.

As the title to this blog hints, the discussion was about focus, specifically as it applies to business networking.  Now, I've spent a lot of time on these pages talking about having a Clear Definite Aim, and about consistently holding a Clear Mental Image of that aim firmly in view.  I've explored how knowing exactly what you want is the first step toward manifesting it.  We spent a week doing exercises learning how to discover what it is that we really want, and we practiced spending time visualizing ourselves already having it.  Yet out there in the networking world, my efforts have been unfocused and vague.  I guess that explains why I've only gotten meager results.  Why is that?

The Masterheart

In earlier posts we explored the idea of the Mastermind.  We learned that no one who has ever been wildly successful in his or her career has achieved that success alone.  Those who have succeeded have assembled around them a team of people, each of whom are either experts in their field or who are solidly supportive of the desired goal.  That team is what is known as a Mastermind.  The idea is that the combined thinking of a group of people focused on one goal is a powerful attractor.

The Mastermind concept arose during the height of the Industrial Age in America, as captains of industry began to build their fortunes around new technologies like automobiles and steel.  It is the idea behind the huge corporate monopolies that arose during that time.  Although the idea is still valid today, our world has changed quite a bit in the past 100 years.  The quality of our goals has changed.  Today, few people I know want to go out into the world to become corporate giants.  Sure, we would enjoy having the freedom that more money brings, but I don't know anyone who wants to be the new Henry Ford.

In my circles at least, most of us just want to be happy, and we want to be surrounded by happy people.  We want to do work that we love, and we want that work to add value to our collective world.  Yes, we still have dreams.  I have a friend who has a dream of having a chain of insurance offices, because she loves helping people by protecting their cars and their homes.  I have another friend who, like me, wants to make a living writing books.  Yet another friend wants to teach people to cook mouth-watering dishes using organic and raw ingredients.  I have several friends whose big dream is to raise a happy family without having to struggle to find enough money to pay for basic expenses.  These are all heart goals more than money goals.  I'm thinking that instead of assembling a Mastermind team, what some of us really need is a Masterheart.

On The Attitude of Gratitude Project, I've seen first-hand the magic that can happen when people put their hearts together.  My friend Susie was diagnosed earlier this year with Stage 3 breast cancer.  When she went for her initial mammogram she was told that she needed to start putting her affairs in order.  Can you imagine going in for a mammogram and being told you are going to die, without any preliminary discussion of options?  Well, Susie wasn't having any of it.  She wasn't ready to die, and she had no intention of accepting her doctor's death sentence without a fight.  She had the surgery, she suffered through the chemo and the radiation treatments, and she fought with all her might to live.

I spoke with Susie this past weekend as we met to celebrate her complete recovery.  She told me that the most important factor that contributed to her recovery was the combined love of everyone that supported her during her healing period.  Susie had the love of friends and family, she had loving caregivers, and she had the combined support of all of her online friends on Facebook and the grateful people on The Attitude of Gratitude Project.  Most of all, though, Susie had Ian, whose loved helped him to be strong for her even when she was too weak to be strong for herself.  The combined love of all of these people is what healed her.  Susie lived because she was fortunate enough to have a Masterheart.

I'm thinking it's a good idea for each of us to assemble around us a team of people that qualify both as a Mastermind and as a Masterheart.  Some people on your team will be helpful by offering their knowledge; others will be helpful by offering their love.  I firmly believe that without love all success is hollow.  In order to properly receive that love, though, it will be necessary to have an open heart.  If you want to get love from others, it is first necessary to give love.  Make it a point to practice loving everyone who crosses your path, even people you don't know.  Many of us are afraid to love, because loving makes us vulnerable to be hurt.  Do it anyway.  Your life may depend on it. 

As the Wizard told the Tin Man, "A heart is not judged by how much you love; but by how much you are loved by others."  Love freely; love deeply.  You'll know you're doing it right when you start seeing it reflected back at you everywhere you go.  Then, the whole world will be your Masterheart.

Thoughts are Things

What are you thinking right now?  Is it a happy thought?  Are you thinking about how blessed you are to have such a wonderful life?  Are you thinking how wonderful it is to have so much free time that you can sit down and read something just for fun?  Maybe instead you're thinking thoughts that are stressing you out.  You're thinking you're rushed for time, you're brooding about being so broke all the time or possibly you're irritated at someone or something and you're reading this as a form of escape.  Are you always aware of what you're thinking, or do your thoughts run freely and unbridled through your brain?  I'm thinking that if you knew exactly how powerful your thoughts are you would want to make an effort to harness that energy to your advantage.  

Here are two good reasons to learn to be more careful about which thoughts you allow into your brain:  First, what you think is a direct cause of how you feel.  Your mood at any particular time is always the direct result of what thoughts you are thinking.  No exceptions.  Next time you find yourself in a foul mood, pay attention to the thoughts that are running through your brain.  Odds are you're in a rant of some kind, and the words you're telling yourself are feeding your funk.  Ever notice how you can be in a really good mood and someone will say or do something that ruins it and leaves you grumbling and angry?  It wasn't that outside event that changed your mood, it was, as the friends of Bill W like to put it, your own stinkin' thinkin' that bummed you out. 

As a recovering emotional basketcase, this first reason is why I eventually learned to control my thoughts.  I tend to brood, darkly.  So darkly, that I developed a terminal illness:  a depression so profound that for over three years it was always a miracle when I made it through the day without taking my own life.  I would call my best friend and ask her, "Cindy, explain to me again why it is that I need to stay alive?"  And she would always list reasons for me until she finally hit on one that my brain could believe and focus on.  It wasn't always the same one; most often it was my cat, Pearl, who needed me because she was afraid of everyone else.  Between them, Cindy and Pearl kept me alive; they both stayed by my side long after everyone else I knew had backed slowly away from the crazy woman that I had become and left me alone to wallow in the darkness.  I will always be grateful to Cindy for her patience and her compassion during that time. 

My psychiatrist got rich off of me.  Well, he got $400 a month; the medication he prescribed cost me another $350.  While I was under his care I got progressively worse.  It got so bad at one point that he actually told me that "we" wouldn't be able to manage this for long as an outpatient.  He told me to prepare for the fact that eventually I would be living out my life in the State mental hospital as an indigent patient.  No, he wasn't trying to scare me; he was just being clinical.  Somehow, though, even through my medicated fog, there was a part of me that refused to accept that.  Oh, it would have been easy to give up and allow his proclamation to become my reality.  If would have been easy to just be crazy and locked up, letting the state feed me and clothe me and give me a place to stay, rent free, for the rest of my life.  It would have been even easier just to die and put everyone out of their misery.  But there was still a tiny part of me that wanted to fight for my life.  That small part of me THOUGHT that somehow I could beat this thing.

One day, Mr. Psychiatrist Moneybags gave me one of his textbooks.  I was in graduate school at the time, and he knew me well enough to know that I devoured textbooks.  I was obsessed with soaking up knowledge, a fact that was both a symptom of my pathology and ultimately the thing that brought me back into the light.  The textbook was called Cognitive Therapy.  It was a new concept to me at the time, and it really opened my eyes.  Basically, the theory is exactly what we are talking about here.  Some people are crazy because they think crazy thoughts.  All you have to do is teach them to think better thoughts and they'll be OK.  Apparently my doctor had never actually read this book, because he had never tried this on me.  His job was to write prescriptions.  At any rate, that book saved my life.

So, the first reason to control our thinking is to control our mood.  We do not have to believe everything that we think.  We can choose to stop thinking thoughts that make us miserable and choose instead to think pleasant thoughts that keep our mood and our vibrational energy high.  Second, the graduate level reason for choosing our thoughts, is that what we habitually think eventually becomes what manifests in our world.  Again, no exceptions. 

Wallace Wattles, that Law of Attraction guru, states this as his First Law: 

"There is a thinking stuff from which all things are made and which, in its original state, permeates, penetrates, and fills the inner spaces of the universe.  A thought in this substance produces the thing that is imaged by the thought.  A person can form things in his thought and, by impressing his thought upon formless substance, can cause the thing that he thinks about to be created."

The universe responds to our thoughts and turns them into "things."  Thoughts are things.  As Einstein put it, E=MC2 ... Energy and Matter are made of exactly the same stuff.  What that means is that if you are always thinking things that stress you out and make you unhappy, angry, depressed, or worried, those very things you are thinking will be what crosses your path out in the real world.  Is it just irony that people who spend a lot of time worrying about being robbed, who spend money on security systems and who are afraid at night to be in their own home alone, are the very people who get robbed?  People used to yell at me for always leaving my doors unlocked.  They would show me news reports of home invasions just blocks away from where I lived.  I would always ask, "Was the house locked up, or did they break in?"  Without exception, the intruder had to bust his way in.  Now, I'm not telling you to unlock your doors, I'm just saying that you get what you think about most.  

This is the reason that visualization is such a powerful tool.  We did some powerful visualization last month when we did the Prosperity Project together.  Do you remember how it felt to imagine yourself spending all that money?  I recommend that you spend a few minutes every day deliberately visualizing yourself in your happy place, whatever that may be for you.  See yourself doing the things you will be doing after you have finally achieved your dreams and made your fortune.  That exercise alone is very powerful and will serve to move you in that very direction.

Today, though, what I'm wanting to suggest here is that even when you're not actively visualizing that you become aware of each thought as it enters your mind.  As you go through your day, become the silent observer who watches your thoughts.  For now, don't judge them as good or bad thoughts; simply observe what you think and how your thoughts make you feel.  When you find yourself thinking a negative thoughts, notice it.  Say, "Hmmm.  That's a negative thought."  And then go about your day.  If you  do that consistently, two things will happen:  First, by observing your thoughts you are no longer identified with them.  Negative thoughts will no longer have the power to destroy your mood.  Second, you will find yourself discarding negative thoughts in favor of better thoughts.  You Spirit wants to soar free and wants to be light and happy. 


Eventually, as you become more and more aware of the connection between your thoughts and your reality, you will begin to ask yourself this question:  "If what I am thinking about right now became my reality, would that be a good thing or a bad thing?"  I guarantee that when you become aware enough to ask yourself this question, you will quickly begin to cast down destructive thoughts and to focus on more positive stuff.  As Paul writes in Philippians 4:8,  "Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."  For that, my friends, is what your life will become.  No exceptions.

The Pain Body

Does this sound familiar?  You're going along being all spiritual, mood is light, and you're able to handle whatever comes along without breaking your stride.  You're proud of the progress you've made, and you feel like your ride on that emotional roller coaster you used to be trapped on is finally behind you.  Then, someone says something that totally sets you off:  your blood starts boiling and you fly into a rage.  Or, if you swing the other way and your anger tends to get directed inward, you tumble down into a deep depression.  What just happened?

I have a friend who used to be a heavy drinker.  Generally, he tends to be an easy-going and generous guy, but when he drank he turned into someone he called Him.  Him was just down-right mean and abusive.   You could always tell when Him woke up and was ready to wreak havoc:  He would push his glasses down to the end of his nose and peer over them in a warning glare, then he'd let you have it.  Even now that he's been sober for a long time, every now and then Him will rear his ugly little head from time to time.

We all have a Him inside of us.  Only in my case, it's a Her.  A few years back I picked up a copy of Eckhart Tolle's book The Power of Now, in which Tolle explains what is going on here.  Tolle calls this emotionally-charged alter-ego The Pain Body.  The Pain Body is made up of all of the unresolved emotional issues from our past.  In her book Molecules of Emotion, scientist Candace Pert explains that any time we do not fully process emotions, they actually become a part of our physical biology and embed themselves in our cells until a future episode awakens them.   Over time, these molecules of emotion take on a life of their own and become our Pain Body.

We basically have two intelligences working inside us.  First, there is our thinking, which is basically the stories we tell ourselves inside our head.  Thinking can be a very useful tool, but most of us confuse what we think with who we are.  Second, we have emotion, which is our body's intelligence.  Abraham-Hicks calls our emotions our Guidance System:  emotions tell us when something is good or bad, when we are moving toward or away from that which our real self knows to be true and good.  Your thinking has the power to control your emotion.  This is a wonderful thing to know if you are able to control your thinking.  If, however, you believe that the voice in your head is really you, you will tend to forget that you shouldn't believe everything that you think.  You'll also notice that when you tell yourself certain stories in your head you tend to get REALLY upset.  Then your Him surfaces and all bets are off.

Emotions are very useful when they are a reaction to a real event; unfortunately, they react just as strongly to a perceived event, which is why if you have certain conversations or think along certain lines you can activate your Pain Body.  The Pain Body is an energetic entity located within, but separated from our total energetic field.  We all have one.  Usually it lies dormant until something happens to set it off.  When that happens we are no longer the ones steering the ship:  the Pain Body has taken control and the best that we can learn to do is manage it until it subsides again.  If we are emotionally mature or very fortunate, our Pain Body lies dormant most of the time.  Some people, however, are almost entirely controlled by their Pain Body.  You know them when you see them:  they thrive on drama and are always reactive and easy to offend.

So how do we learn to control this evil twin that lives inside us?  How can we learn not to become possessed by Him, or to send Him packing when he rears his pointy little head?   The Pain Body thrives on pain.  It can be activated by pain, offense, insult, worry, fear ... and once it awakens, its survival instinct will take over and it will want FOOD, which it will expect your thinking to provide.  When the Pain Body awakens you will notice that your thinking changes along with it.  You begin telling yourself stories in your head that serve to perpetuate the anger, fear, or worry ... whatever is the dominant emotion of your Pain Body.  You'll call your friends and tell THEM the story so that you can hear it all over again.  The more you tell it, the more angry, fearful, or worried you become.  If you tend to be depressed instead of angry, you will crawl into your dark place and wallow.

The only way to prevent the Pain Body from taking over, or to send it back to sleep in its coffin, is not to feed it.  We must become aware enough of what is happening that we can stop the negative thinking that is feeding our Pain Body.  Remember the two intelligences?  Of the two, the only one we can control is our thinking.  Emotion just happens.  When we are sad, we are really sad.  When we are angry, there is no doubt that the anger is real.  Even though we may describe ourselves as emotionally immature and we think that our emotions are the problem, they're really not.  It's always our thinking that's the problem.

Next time you notice that your Pain Body has taken over and you find yourself overwhelmed with negative emotion, try this technique:  First, feel the pain.  Really feel it.  Remember that your Pain Body grew out of your unwillingness to fully process the emotion the first time around.  So in order to heal your Pain Body you must, sooner or later, feel the emotional pain.  But here's the difference:  This time you will practice feeling the full force of the pain without the accompanying story you tell yourself in your head.  Instead, you will think something like:  "Oh, there's anger here.  I feel really angry.  This is what it feels like to be angry."  Allow yourself to fully feel the anger.  Notice what is happening to your body when you are angry.  Where in your body do you feel the anger?  Do you clench your teeth?  Your fists?  Does your stomach get tied up in knots?  What exactly is happening to you?

If you find yourself telling the story of your anger, STOP.  Strive to become an observer, only.  By watching the anger instead of becoming identified with it, you cease to feed the Pain Body and begin to actually heal the pain.  Remember, some of us have very powerful Pain Bodies, so you will have to allow it space to run its full course.  Without food, though, it will fall dormant again sooner rather than later.  At first this might be hard:  When the Pain Body has awakened, it is running the show and it will not want to be killed off.  It will take control of your thinking, speaking, doing.  You must regain control, and you can do that by dis-identifying with your thoughts.  When the Pain Body takes over, become aware that it is definitely Him and NOT you who is throwing this temper tantrum.  Stand aside and observe.  If you do this every time, your Pain Body will eventually become weaker and will awaken less frequently and with less force.

Does this mean that you will never get angry again?  Of course not.  There are real reasons to become angry, and our emotions are given to us to protect us and to teach us what is right and what is wrong for us.  But you will become angry because of something that is happening in the present moment, not re-living past anger; and you will feel and express your present anger so completely in the present moment that it will not be able to turn itself into a molecule of emotion that adds to your Pain Body. Eventually, you will almost forget that you ever had a Him.

Finding Time: Whatever Happened To Servants?

What ever happened to servants?  I watch old movies and everyone had servants.  Even bachelors had a man who did all the cooking and cleaning.  The Bradys had Alice.  On Bonanza they had Hop Sing the Chinaman (that's what people called them then).  In black and white movies there was always some woman (often a negro woman) dressed in a crisply starched uniform who brought in the cocktails at the end of a long day.  Rich people had butlers, even if they did end up being the one who killed the guy.  Back in Gone With The Wind days they had slaves, which were servants you adopted like a pet. On Leave It To Beaver, Mrs. Cleaver was the servant.  Remember when moms stayed home and baked cookies for afternoon snacks and wore those cute little dresses so they would be pretty when their man came home?  Remember those days?

Can we please have those days back again?  OK, while I was writing that I began to realize the answer to my own question.  There seems to have been an issue with human dignity in the whole servant issue.  Chinamen and negros weren't really human, were they?  Certainly slaves weren't.  Eventually, as we became a more enlightened world, we began to wake up to the fact that all humans are first-class humans, and that no segment of the population should be made to serve another segment.  I think we may have gotten a little carried away with that.  Just saying.  I mean, no one could call a butler undignified, so what happened, really?

Before World War II (I'm going by movies here; I'm no historian), servants seem to have been more prevalent.  In the 1950s, we see the mom staying home and doing all the work herself so that her man would have a nice home and the kids would always have a beautiful, well-dressed mommy to come home to (and warm cookies).  Then, women got uppity and were no longer content to stay home and take care of the house.  They wanted to become doctors and lawyers and rocket scientists.  Instead, they became secretaries and waitresses, but at least they were earning their own money.  Eventually, most women entered the workforce, which left no one at home minding the oven.  Slowly, insidiously, we have reached the point where everyone has a job.  Everyone has to have a job.  It's the only way we can survive in this expensive world.

So now, no one is left at home to do the cooking and the cleaning.  And now, it is no longer politically correct to have servants.  And now, my house is a disaster on most days, with unwashed dishes and a dirty floor.  What kind of cruel trick is that?  The servant thing wasn't such a bad system, was it?  People who were born into lower classes could become servants and then get to spend their lives living in beautiful mansions they didn't pay for.  Is that so wrong?  When we were younger, my brother wanted to grow up to be a butler for just that reason.  I thought he was crazy, but now I'm beginning to realize he was on to something.

Back when I was a French major, I remember having this conversation with one of my colleagues.  We always spoke French when we were together, because that's how you learn a foreign language.  On that particular day I remember complaining about not having enough time to do all the housework, and I made the comment that I wished I had a wife who would take care of all that for me.  Only in French the word for wife is femme, the same word that means woman; and unfortunately for me, my colleague was a lesbian. So for a while I was very popular among the French Lesbian crowd, until they all realized it was just a bad translation.  But I digress.

There are only so many hours in a day, and we must spend those hours doing the most important things and letting the other things slide.  I've gotten very good at ignoring dirty dishes and unwashed floors, simply because it does no good to stress over them.  But not having food to eat after a long day at the pool store is where I'm beginning to draw the line.  Sure, I know how to use a crock pot.  But I think the world is ready for another shift.  Just as not every woman should have been forced to stay home to cook and clean, not every human in America should be forced to go out and get a job.  Someone should be encouraged to stay home and take care of the busy working people.  There are actually some people out there who would prefer to stay home and take care of the people. 

Maybe if more people started thinking this way, we'd see ads on Craig's List for live-in homemakers that weren't code for "I want someone to be my bitch."  Maybe we could have some sort of communal living arrangement where everyone gets to contribute what they do best:  some would be wage earners and some would be support personnel, staying home to bake the cookies.  Maybe we could do away with money entirely so that no one would have to work and we could ALL stay home and bake cookies. (Oh, no!  My friend Lee is right -- I AM a communist!)  

Given a choice, I will always be the one who goes out to work.  When I was a kid playing house with my brother, I used to make him stay home and watch the babies while I went off to work with the briefcase.  He hated that game, because I would spend the time shuffling papers around and calling it work, while he sat in the stairwell with our "family."  When he tried to walk away from all the dolls because he was bored out of his mind, I would yell at him, "Get back there and take care of those babies!"  I was kind of bossy. 

The point of all this socio-political rambling is that I need help.  I am fortunate to be doing work that I enjoy, but I work from 5:30 every morning until about 8:00 every night, most of it spent away from home.  I can't find a way to manufacture more time, or to clone myself; but I am no longer willing to live in a dirty house.  I am no longer willing to live on fast food.  I want real meals and a clean kitchen.  I want a clean floor and a bed that stays made, with lavender-scented pillows.  I want a mom, a wife, a servant, a butler.  Whatever.  I want help!  I want someone who will take care of me so that when my work day is done there's a hot meal waiting for me.  And maybe some cookies.  Is that really so wrong?

Asking the Right Questions

Most of us stumble through life without knowing exactly where we are headed, and not a clue as to how to get there.  Our lives unfold haphazardly, as we react to the seemingly random people and situations who cross our paths.  We walk through life as if through a dream, believing our dream to be real.  Eventually, some of us become tired of bumping around in the dark, and begin to search for answers, or at least a few clues. We learn to ask questions of life.

Questions are very powerful, because if we ask a question often enough, Spirit will always reward us with an answer.  It's important to choose our questions carefully.  Our questions can empower us, or they can continue to keep us bound in negativity and strife.  What kind of questions do you ask?

Maybe these questions sound familiar to you:  Why does this keep happening to me?  When will I ever find someone?  Why can't he ever pick up his clothes?  Why does the car break down every time I've got a few dollars saved?  Why am I the only one who ever does any work around here?  Why can't that kid just do what I tell him to do? Could you drive any slower?  I could go on, but you get the idea.

We may not realize it, but what we say to ourselves holds immense power over how our lives unfold.  When we ask questions like these, we think that we are just blowing off steam, but in reality we are reinforcing the exact things that we would like to see changed.  We always get the answers to our questions, so if you are wanting to know why your spouse is always lazy, you will be sure to get more and more experience with a lazy spouse. So, let's learn to ask more empowering questions.

When I reached the darkest point of my life, I ran off to DC to live with my brother for a while.  I knew that whatever I was doing was wrong, and staying with my brother was a way of regaining my center.  I knew that meditation would help me find my way out of the darkness, but I didn't know how to go about it.  Because I had been asking the question, "How do I meditate," I was led to the sangha of the Venerable Zen Master PoHwa Sunim in Alexandria, Virginia.  Sunim was wonderful.  The first night I met with him, he took a long hard look at me and said, "All of the problems that you see come from within you; all of the answers that you seek also come from within you."  Sunim teaches that when you sit in zazen you must also have a question; otherwise, you are just sitting quietly.  Brains need something to work on, and a question gives our brains an anchor while we meditate.  

Here is the question that Sunim gives to his students:  "By what means am I breathing?"  You gotta love zen questions.  It really is a brilliant question for meditation, since we are focusing on our breath while we are asking it.  It also is a question you could ask your whole life and never really know the answer to.  It focuses on the point in our bodies where spirit meets flesh.  It also serves to bring us outside of ourselves so that we become the silent observer instead of the one embroiled in drama.

As fascinating a Sunim's question was, though, it is not necessarily the type of question that I'm talking about here, although the process is the same:  Get quiet, ask your question.  Repeat.  Here are some examples of some empowering everyday questions you could ask yourself:

• How can I make this better?
• How can I learn to get along better with my boss/spouse/child/neighbor/co-worker? 
• How can I gain control over my diet and exercise?  
• How can I take this idea and turn it into money?  
• How can I find time to work on my dream? 

If you want to get even deeper, try some of these questions:

• What is it that I really want?  
• What does it really mean to love someone?  
• What can I find to be grateful for today? 
• What can I learn from this?  
• How can I add value to someone's life today?  
• How can I use my greatest talents to make a difference? 
• How can be of service?  
  

The questions we ask ourselves really matter.  If we want to get really good answers, we need to learn to ask great questions.  At the very least, when you catch yourself asking those disempowering questions, STOP.   Here at The New Book of Clues, we specialize in questions.  At best, we'll find a few clues along the way.  If it's answers you want, I suggest you look inside yourself.  The answers you seek will be there waiting.

Prosperity Project: Clear Definite Aim

Within every highly successful person is an unquenchable thirst for adding value to the lives of others.  Ralph Marston

 
Greetings, prosperous ones.  We have come to the end of our Prosperity Project.  We have pretended that we had lots of money to spend, and that game showed us a bit about what it is that we really value.  We have spent the past few days looking at the things that we enjoy doing most, and we have taken some time to decide what we are most passionate about.  Now, it's time to put it all together.  Today's question is the big FINAL EXAM:  What is it that you really want? 

Back in the very beginning of the Prosperity Project, we talked about a lecture by John Maxwell called How To Make Your Dreams a Reality.  In his lecture, Mr. Maxwell gave us a checklist to help us gauge how likely we were to manifest our dreams.  Do you remember that list?  Maxwell's final dream test question was Significance.  How does your dream add value to someone else?  Does your dream benefit others? 

Can you figure out a way that you can spend your days doing the things you love, for the reasons that you are most passionate about, in a way that other people will benefit from it?  If you can find the answer to that question, then you have found the key to bringing in the money you've been just pretending to spend until now.  If you can find the answer to that question, then you have found your Clear Definite Aim.  

Oh, you could be wrong.  It could be something else entirely.  Be willing to be wrong.   Whatever it is, if your heart is behind it, if it feels right to you, if it feels exciting yet terrifying at the same time, then go for it, even if it turns out to be crazy.  Even if it's not practical.  Even if you really should be doing something else.  DREAM BIG.

OK, so you've decided on your Clear Definite Aim, the big idea that you have that excites you, that you feel passionate about, that you know in your heart (even if it terrifies you and you know that people will laugh) is right for you, then I urge you to continue the daily visualization that we've been doing here on the Prosperity Project.  Spend 15 minutes every morning pretending that you are engaged in that occupation.  See yourself performing your favorite activity, and see people benefitting greatly because of what you're doing.  See the people being so grateful for the benefit that you are providing them that they give you large amounts of money in compensation.  Enjoy the way that feels.  See the people you do business with growing and thriving because of what you provide them.  See yourself receiving the revenues that your joyous work provides.  See it.  Feel it.  Stick with it.

The secret to visualizing is not to waver.  Once you've chosen your Clear Definite Aim, then begin to clarify your vision.  The more laser vocus you bring to your visualizations, and certainly the more emotionally you engage in the procedure, the stronger the attraction you create.  We have gotten a lot of practice here on the Prosperity Project in creating an imaginary world.  Take what you have learned here and continue in your make believe world.  See yourself as a million-copy-selling author.  See your photographs on the cover of magazines all over the world.  See your business ten times its current size, enriching the lives of people all over the world.

Is that it?  All I have to do is pretend I'm making money and I'll make money?  No, of course not.  There's way more to it than that.  But that is without a doubt the very necessary first step.  If you will take this one step, then you will have gone a long way toward making your dreams come true.  At least you know which direction take, and that's more than most people ever decide.

My work here on The New Book of Clues is not to provide answers.  There are experts for that.  My work is to suggest questions and to provide clues that might lead you to the answers that you seek.  I hope that you have enjoyed our journey as much as I have.  The Prosperity Project has taught me much about my relationship with money, and I am anxious to see what happens when I begin spending 15 minutes every morning visualizing myself as an internationally popular writer and speaker making huge amounts of money from my books and conferences.  When I come through your town on my tour, I hope that you stop by to visit.

Prosperity Project, Phase 2: Imagination and Passion

Greetings, prosperous ones.

Yesterday we looked at some qualities of successful people, and if you're anything like me you found some areas that you can improve in your own life.  My guess is though, you already possess most of those qualities in adequate amounts.  The fact that you are even here, reading these pages, shows that you have a clear desire to improve yourself along these lines.  My suspicion is that we are not yet succeeding because we have not yet become clear  as to what it is that we really want to do with our lives.  We have not yet decided on our Clear Definite Aim. 

We did, however, spend a few days thinking about our favorite activities and our strongest skills.  We have decided which tasks we perform that engage us so completely that time drops away and we are able to work effortlessly for long periods of time without tiring.  Wouldn't it be nice if our favorite hobby were also the way that we earned our money?  Then, we could play all day.  But surely there's more to it than that.  I was about to say that you can't get a job watching TV all day, but then I've seen some security guards who do just that.  What I will say here is that I believe we can create for ourselves whatever kind of job that we can imagine.  We just have to be creative.  That's the Imagination part Napoleon Hill talks about.

Money comes to us because we add value to the world.  If we're on the couch watching House, we're not providing anyone value.  If, however, we get an idea while watching House that we turn into a screenplay of our own, or if you're a doctor watching House and you get an idea that helps you save a life, now value did ultimately come out of that activity.   What will turn our favorite activity into revenue is a creative idea.  We must use our imagination to figure out a way that we can use our best skills and our favorite activities to provide a much-needed service to the world.  This will require thinking outside of your everyday TV-shaped box. 

For example, it's one thing to be a writer; it's another thing to be a writer with a message; and it's quite another thing entirely to be a writer with a message that the world is ready to embrace.  If you are a photographer, you probably have thousands of world-class photographs sitting in your files.  How do you package those in a way that they can become revenue for you?  Or if you're not feeling particularly entrepreneurial, how can you find someone like, say, National Geographic, to pay you lots of money to travel all over the world taking pictures?  Or maybe the thing you really want to do is that one crazy dream that came out as the answer to yesterday's question, that wildest dream you have that you've never pursued because it's just not practical.  Maybe, just maybe, it might be possible that if you were to really do that one crazy thing, it would be the one change that would make all the difference for you.  I'm just saying. 

As we've been saying all along, we must start right where we are, and we must start at the beginning.  Once we decide what we really want (and we're a long way yet from deciding that, aren't we?) we can't just quit our current jobs and jump into our dream jobs.  Life doesn't work that way.  There's karmic momentum that we have to contend with.  We must continue to carry on with our current lives, making sure to do everything in that Certain Way, consciously developing the character traits of success.  No, the beginning doesn't involve taking radical action; the beginning involves dreaming.  Before we can claim our dream life, we must first know exactly what it looks like.  To borrow from both Hill and Wattles, we must determine what precisely is our Clear Definite Aim, and we must continuously hold a Clear Mental Image of that before us as we go about our current activities.

Of all the steps and obstacles that we will encounter on the journey to our heart's desire, deciding a Clear Definite Aim is by far the most difficult.   It is why most people never even get started.  Most of us want conflicting things.  For example, I want to travel all over the world, but I also want to sing in the local community chorus and grow a garden.  I really like my current job at the pool store, and I know I could turn that into a money making enterprise that would reward me handsomely, yet it conflicts with my lifelong desire to see the world and to have several residences scattered all over the planet.  I also want to be an internationally known writer and speaker, and I can't see myself having time to do all that and build a pool store empire. 

We are all of us juggling conflicting desires that cancel each other out.  We are also further confused because some of what we think we want is actually what someone else wants for us.  Many of us are trying to fulfill our parents' dreams or our spouse's dreams.  Perhaps we have chosen our current profession because it is what was expected of us.  If our goals and our career have been chosen to please someone else, then our participation in that activity will always lack the passion necessary to drive us to success.  We must choose our own dreams, even if it outrages and scandalizes our tribe. 

So how do we untangle this knotted mass of conflicting dreams and obligations?  We use our imagination, of course!  A great way to find out what we really want to be, do, and have is to take the Passion Test.  Developed by Janet Bray Attwood and Chris Attwood, The Passion Test helps you to determine your top five passions in life.  You can take the Passion Test online, but they will first ask you to sign up for a 30-day free trial.  You can also pick up the book at a bookstore or check it out from your local library.  It will be well worth the time and money involved to get the full version. 

In the meantime, though, here is the Cliff Notes version: 

First, make a list of everything that you are passionate about.  In this stage it does not matter that you might have conflicting desires; this is the brain dump portion of the exercise.  Don't censor yourself:  Coffee made my list, because first thing in the morning I am passionate about that first cup!  Write down everything that you will be, do, and have when your life is ideal.  Everything.  For now it doesn't matter how you could ever accomplish any of these things, it matters only that you want them.  DREAM BIG!   Remember that we are looking for your passions, not your goals.  "What's the difference?  A passion is how you choose to live your life.  Jack chooses to live life as a multimillionaire.  A goal is something you aim to achieve.  The goal could be stated as 'to earn $2 million within the next year.'"


Next comes the test part.   Got your list?  Look at the first two items on the list.  Of those two desires, which one is more important to you?  If you had to choose one and let the other go, which one would you keep?  Now, take your keeper and compare it to the next item on the list.  Of those two desires, which is more important to you?  Continue to compare the items on your list, judging between two at a time which is most important to you, until you reach the bottom of your list.  The last one standing will be labelled Passion #1.  Then take the next item on your list and repeat the process until you have chosen your top five passions.  If you get stuck, ask yourself this question:  "If I could be, do, or have 1 and it meant that I could never be, do, or have 2, would that be OK with me?  Which one matters more."

Here is an example from the book to show you what they mean:

Jack's initial list:

1. Being of service to massive numbers of people. 
2. Having an international impact.
3. Enjoying celebrity status.
4. Being part of a dynamic team.
5. Having a leadership role.
6. Helping people live their vision. 
7. Speaking to large groups.
8. Having an impact through television. 
9. Being a multimillionaire.
10. Having world-class quarters and support team.
11. Having lots of free time.
12. Studying with spiritual masters regularly.
13. Being part of a spiritual leaders network.
14. Creating a core group of ongoing trainers who feel identified with my organization.
15. Having fun, fun, fun!

Now here are Jack's final five top passions after submitting the above list to the passion test.

1. Helping people live their vision.
2. Being part of a dynamic team.
3. Being of service to massive numbers of people
4. Having an international impact
5. Creating a core group of ongoing trainers who feel identified with my organization. 

As you can see, this process will require some time, so I suggest that you don't try to do this at work while the boss isn't looking.  Take some time with it.  Go into your quiet place and really give it your full attention.  I plan to do mine this evening; although I've done this test before, we are continually evolving, so our list will evolve with us. 

Here then, is today's study question:

What are the top five things that you are most passionate about being, doing, and having in your ideal life? 

Prosperity Project, Phase 2: Service

Prosperity Project, Phase 2: Napoleon Hill's Law of Success

Welcome back, prosperous friends!

We have been exploring together the question, "How do we get from where we are to where we want to be?"  We have decided that it's not what you do so much as how you do it that matters.  Each of us will ultimately pick a different What, but the How will be the same for all of us.   In his book The Law of Success, Napoleon Hill breaks down the fifteen qualities of a successful person.  Let's count down to number one together.

Quality #15:  The Golden Rule.  Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.  If you are to be successful, you must have a code of ethics which guides your actions.   Karmic law treats everyone equally:  what goes around comes around.  If you consistently treat others honestly, fairly, generously, sincerely, then that is how the world will treat you in turn.

Quality #14:  Tolerance.  Live and let live.  We are all different, and it is our differences that make this world such a beautifully rich tapestry.  Intolerance, ignorance and superstition have been the cause of all wars, conflicts, and strife.  We must learn to question our most deep-seated assumptions about what we believe to be right, and must learn to make room in our minds and hearts for points of view that differ from our own.

Quality #13:  Failure.  Interesting that failure would be a quality of success, isn't it?  According to Hill we learn more from our failures than from any other lesson.  He prefers to call them "Temporary Defeats," because it's only a failure if you quit.  Hill lost his fortune more than once.  Every time, just before the big fall, he felt like he was on top of the world.  They say that "pride goeth before the fall," and Hill found that to be true in his case.  He eventually, after about the sixth time, started learning that every time he got cocky it was a sign that he was taking himself too seriously, and that if he weren't careful everything would soon fall apart.  Don't be afraid of failure, but don't rule it out either.  It's just a thing.  Learn from it and move on.  Hill writes, "You have failed many times?  How fortunate!  You ought to know, by now, some of the things NOT do do." 

Quality #12:  Co-operation.  Hill describes two forms of co-operation that are essential to success:  "First, the Co-operation between people who group themselves together or form alliances for the purpose of attaining a given end, under the principles known as the Law of the Master Mind.  Second, the Co-operation between the conscious and the sub-conscious minds, which forms a reasonable hypothesis of man's ability to contact, communicate with and draw upon infinite intelligence."  We cannot attract that which we desire unless our mind and our heart are of one accord.  We cannot make progress in the physical world if we are at cross-purposes with our team.  The key is focused effort, all working toward the same end.  We cannot be successful in a vacuum, so learning to cooperate with others is an essential quality to cultivate.

Quality #11:  Concentration.  "Concentration is the act of focusing the mind upon a given desire until ways and means for its realization have been worked out and successfully put into operation."  In addition to consistently focusing our mind on our desired goal, we must also form consistent habits that move us toward that goal.  (We will find that focus is a recurring theme in many of these qualities.)

Quality #10:  Accurate Thought.  "Accurate thought involves two fundamentals which all who indulge in it must observe. First, to think accurately you must separate facts from mere information.  There is much "information" available to you that is not based upon facts.  Second, you must separate facts into two classes; namely, the important and the unimportant, or, the relevant and the irrelevant. This reminds me of one of my favorite sayings:  "Don't believe everything you think."  Learn to cultivate a discerning mind.  It will be well worth the considerable effort.

Quality #9:  Pleasing Personality.  An attractive personality is a personality that attracts.  If we are wanting to learn to attract abundance, being attractive is an important quality to develop.  Quality #15 dealt with our character.  Here, we are focusing on the externals:  body language, clothing, facial expression, handshake.  But even if you are, as Hill so colorfully puts it, "as homely as the circus fat woman," there is one key that will always cause others to see your personality as a pleasing one, and that is by "taking a keen heart-interest in the other fellow's 'game' in life."    When building your business network, don't aggressively sell your wares to your colleagues.  That is a sure way to annoy people, which is definitely not attractive.  Instead, learn to approach each business relationship with the question, What are the biggest challenges you face in your business, and how can I help you to resolve them? 

Quality #8:  Habit of Doing More Than Paid For.  This is easier to do when you are able to do the kind of work that you LOVE.  "A (wo)man is most efficient and will more quickly and easily succeed when engaged in work that he loves, or work that he performs in behalf of some person whom he loves."  We talked about this quality in an earlier post.  If you think you should be earning $100 an hour instead of $10 an hour, then work as if you already being paid the larger amount.  If you truly hate your job and cannot find anything about it to love, then this might be hard for you.  So here's my advice:  Quit.  Even if the new job is still not the job of your dreams, using a different set of skills might be more appealing to you.  Life is too short to do work that you hate.

Quality  #7:  Self-Control.  Discipline.  There really is no way around this one.  Every morning I have to wake up two hours early to write this blog before work.  Some days I really don't want to get out of bed.  It takes a lot of self-control to make ourselves do unpleasant things, or even do pleasant things consistently.

Quality #6:  Enthusiasm.  Enthusiasm is "the vital moving force that impels action.  The greatest leaders of men are those who know how to inspire enthusasm in their followers ....  Mix enthusiasm with your work and it will not seem hard or monotonous.  Enthusiasm will so energize your entire body that you can get along with less than half the usual amount of sleep and at the same time it will enable you to perform from two to three times as much work as you usually perform in a given period, without fatigue."  Find a way to do your work with enthusiasm.

Quality #5:  Imagination.  "The imagination is both interpretive and creative in nature."  Let your mind be free to wander.  Dream big dreams.  If you can see it in your mind, you can make it happen in your world.

Quality #4:  Initiative and Leadership.  Do what needs to be done without being asked.  If you have ever had employees, you will agree that initiative is a rare quality.  "One of the peculiarities of Leadership is the fact that it is never found in those who have not acquired the habit of taking the initiative.  Leadership is something that you must invite yourself into; it will never thrust itself upon you."  Even if you are currently doing a job that you dislike, you can begin to practice the habit of taking initiative.

Quality #3:  The Habit of Saving.  No matter how little money you make, even if you are making less money than you need to get by, make it a habit to always save a certain percentage of every dollar that you bring in.  People are not wealthy who have not amassed a sum of capital.  Capital is just a fancy name for a big pile of money.  Start saving yours now. 

Quality #2:  Self-Confidence.  We talked about this quality in great detail a few days ago in an earlier post.  I have a colleague who, when introducing himself at networking functions, describes himself as "quite possibly the best carpet cleaner on the entire planet."  That's self-confidence, and if I were to ever have a carpet, he would be the guy I hire.  Be that guy. 

Quality #1:  A Definite Chief Aim.  I have saved this quality for last, because this is exactly the question we are trying to answer here in Phase 2 of the Prosperity Project.  What work should I be doing that will earn me the kind of money I would like to be making?  In order to be successful, we must FOCUS our energies and activities toward one specific goal.  We cannot work two or more businesses at the same time and be successful at either one of them.  This is a challenge for people like me who must work one job to pay the bills while building my dream business in my spare time.  If you find yourself in that position, it is important to compartmentalize your time.  While at your job, do your work with enthusiasm, take initiative, and always do more than you are paid to do.  When the time clock rings, it's time to leave the job behind and to focus on your true life's work, whatever that may be.  If you do not have the luxury of already working in your dream job, then you will need to be extremely disciplined to carve out sufficient hours during your day to make progress toward your Definite Chief Aim.  It is why I wake up hours before the sun to write before I go to work.  If I am serious about being a writer, then I must do whatever it takes to find the time to write.

***
We'll look more at this topic tomorrow; but for now, here is today's cluster of study questions:

Is there some activity that you've always wanted to do, but haven't?  Does your practical side get in the way of living your dream?  Is there something that you wanted to be as a child but which seemed impractical when you got older?  What is it that you are doing in your wildest dreams, when no one is looking?