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. 

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.

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?

Prosperity Project Day 26

Welcome, prosperous friends, to Day 26 of the Prosperity Project.

This morning, as I write this, I am back at home after a glorious week in a beautiful mountain hideaway.  The home we stayed in was much bigger than my everyday home, with far more creature comforts than I am accustomed to.  It would be easy to look around me this morning and see all of the ways in which this little house I live in is not quite good enough.  I could choose to focus on the fact that it is really tiny, and there is no beautiful room that is exclusively mine, where I can write undisturbed and take long afternoon naps.  I could also choose to focus on the fact that the kitchen is unfinished, and that although I live with a cabinet maker, I have no cabinets.  I could totally focus on the steamy Florida weather and compare it negatively to the crisp mountain air.  In short, if I wanted to, I could choose to be very discontented this morning.

But I'm not.  Sure, there is much that could be done to this little cottage to make it more livable, but improvements mean projects, and projects are a wonderful way to create memories at the same time as we create beauty together.  Sure, September in Florida is way too steamy for human comfort, and September this year seems to have bled, unwelcome, into October.  But in just a matter of weeks, the weather here will be dry and cool, and while many people are freezing and lamenting the ice and snow, I will be wintering in Florida.   I'm not discontented this morning because I made a choice a year ago to choose to have an attitude of grateful appreciation no matter what life may throw my way.

This week, I've been reading a book by Carolyn Myss, Invisible Acts of Power:  Personal Choices That Create Miracles, in which she describes the acts of service associated with, and motivated by, each of the seven main chakras.  In an earlier post, we talked about giving financial and creative support, which is an act of service powered by our second chakra.  The attitude of grateful appreciation of which I speak today is a sixth chakra act, the chakra often called the Third Eye and associated with wisdom.

Having an attitude of grateful appreciation is a choice; the normal human response is to whine and complain and to see everything that is wrong with our world.  We must actively choose to see our world with a grateful eye, and we must consciously cultivate a grateful attitude, particularly in the face of obstacles, sorrow, and pain.  Myss describes one man, Jack, who managed consistently to keep an attitude of grateful appreciation.  When asked how that was even possible, Jack explained:

"It's been easy for me to find something to appreciate every day.  I gave up expectations.  Tomorrow doesn't have to be better than today for me in order to have a good day.  I don't have to have all my dreams come true in order for me to decide my life is good.  I don't care if I don't drive a certain car or have everything I want.  I don't want that much.  So, it's easy to appreciate life.  I took the burden away from God that he had to provide everything for me so I could be happy.  Oddly enough, I'm happier now than when I lived possessed by having life turn out my way.  People ask me, 'How come you're so happy?' as if I'm on to something.  I just decided to choose to see good somehow in people and to appreciate what each day might have in store for me.  It makes for a better life."  

Like Jack, I choose to see my life as good, just as it is.  But that doesn't stop me from imagining something different for myself.  The trick is being able to visualize more while remaining contented with what is.  It's not that hard really; like Jack, we just need to decide that it will be so.

***
If you are reading this, I want to congratulate you for coming this far with me.  Some people have stopped reading these posts, thinking that we are only spending imaginary money here, and they are waiting for me to start writing clues again.  They don't realize that the clues have been cleverly hidden within the game itself.  So if you are here, you are the kind of person who will dig deep to find the clues you seek.  Good for you! 

So let's spend some money:

$26,000   My share of proceeds from the Living Gratitude Conference, a day-long event featuring speakers specializing in gratitude, appreciation, and the Law of Attraction.

$  2,500   Performing Arts Center building fund
$  5,000   Wealth Building Account (Total $90,000)
$18,500   Vacation Home (Total $97,500)

Looks like I'm easily going to reach my goals before the game ends.  How about you?
How will you spend your $26,000?