So you have burning desires and you set goals and intentions for what you want, that’s a good thing.

And you visualize them, along with allowing yourself to feel the emotions of how it will feel to realize them. Then, you get on with figuring out how you will accomplish them! And . . . then there is stress, anxiety, doubt and worry . . . and mostly undesirable results!

The Intelligent Universe, God, is designed to answer your requests, which is also a good thing - a very good thing. However, are you trying to force or micro-manage the universe, God? Are you taking on the responsibility of working on how exactly you will accomplish your desire?

OK, now I have not said that there are not things that you will end up needing to do in order to contribute to the physical manifestation of what you want, I have said that you are trying to figure out how it will all work in exact detail and what you need to do yourself.

You will, in many cases but not all, have to take some action. The question is, who or what decides what these actions are? Who decides what exact actions will fit in with all the pieces of the puzzle so you get the results you want? Are you capable of that? No, you and I are not. There is a power far greater than you and I that has vastly more knowledge about what is possible and how to put it all together in the result you want. Now this isn’t that we don’t play any part of the process, because we do, we are key to it.

Our thoughts, like seeds, are what put the universe in specific action. And then our alignment with the desires results and our purposeful actions contribute to our actual physical experience of the desire. But it is not our job to figure it all out, or to make it all happen, or to even decide the exact outcome.

Our job is to plant the seed and nurture it while knowing it will develop into something very close to our vision. Just like with a flower seed, we don’t know how it actually changes from a seed to a full grown plant, we don’t have to know this - the universe take care of this.

Briefly, the short version of how our desires come to be:

*You ask for what you want to be, do or have with your thoughts and feelings. This becomes a new point of creation - the idea.

*You have complete faith that the universe will bring this to be, so you relax in confidence - feeling happy.
 
*The universe acts on this request, bringing together whatever is needed.

*You are given guidance as to what you ought to do to fulfill your role in the realization.

*You then take the appropriate actions as directed, knowing with full confidence that you have all the ability and resources needed to follow through.

*You keep your predominate attention on being happy now and on the thoughts and feelings of what you intend to experience, not on what you don’t have or want.

There are some places in this process where we can get essentially muck it up! And one of the most common is with our thinking that we need to figure out everything required to get the result we want.  This is like thinking we need to figure out how to make a seed develop into a plant.

So, as the result of anxiousness, fear, uncertainty, the need for control or several other possible reasons, we are driven to plow our limited abilities into figuring it all out. Consider this, our perspectives, beliefs and knowledge are based on where we have been in our life experience, and we now want them to yield something new. Sure, we have abilities which allow us to come to new and different ideas, but do we know what the Intelligent Universe knows?

Yes, we can get a certain amount of progress and good results by mentally and physically powering our way through, but it becomes far more fluid and easy to allow Spirit to figure it all out and learn to listen for the inner guidance as to what we should be doing. A small preception change can have a huge difference in what and how much you realize of what you want.

In our struggles to figure it all out, we can become anxious and stressed. Scientists have now proven that the level of brainwave vibration during stress almost totally shuts down our ability to receive intuitive messages from our inner self, which is our conduit to Spirit. So, the more we attempt to figure it all out, and having multiple undesirable outcomes to our actions, we are becoming stressed and are no longer able to receive the directions about the actions that would be the most appropriate to take.

Most spiritual teachings indicate in some way that our role, once we have thought of and stated what we want, is to trust that it will be provided. That the universe will work out all the details. Then relax, and follow along with the purposeful actions which we are guided to do, keeping the end result in mind. And in taking those actions, we know that we are intended to take them, and that we are fully capable of carrying them through.

Just because you can think of what you want does not mean you know how to get it to happen, but the universe does - choose to trust it!

It’s so easy to identify what you don’t like or want, we all do this very well. But there is trouble in dwelling on it. Everything in our reality is energy, including our thought, so where it is focused is important. Our thoughts and feelings are the steering mechanism for our energy. When we focus on what we don’t want, we are giving it our energy.

In recent years science has been proving this age old wisdom that everything is energy vibrating at different rates. This is everything, from solid rock, to flesh and bone, to our thoughts. This is how a plant can be registered as responding in a way that could be described as fear when a person in another location thinks about doing specific harm to the plant. All of the energy we are all a part of is interconnected.

Our thoughts are like seeds, there are predictable results based on the energy focus. The intention of an onion seed is to express as an onion plant, the onion cannot change this energy focus. The Universal Spirit ( whatever term you use for the intelligence and power that we are a part of, commonly God.) responds by fulfilling the ‘request’ of the seed, as intended.

We, on the other hand create seeds with our thoughts, which can be changed. Our thought seeds are acted upon in the very same way by Universal Spirit. What we think and feel is a request for something which is fulfilled. We may not be able to see this directly in many cases in our lives because we are not usually clear about what we are requesting. Spirit puts the pieces together and provides an appropriate response or outcome.

When we harbor the negative thoughts and feelings about something that someone did that we dislike, we are actually perpetuating this. Have you ever noticed how a person acts that is stuck on how awful it was that something happened to them. Through their actions, many times they are acting out being a victim, or they may have some kind of retaliatory attitudes and behaviors.

When you feel bad about something, I’m sure you have noticed how it affects your attitude and behavior. One very common way that we perpetuate things is by continuing to talk about them. Griping, complaining, expressing resentment, cutting down the ‘responsible’ party or group are all just the extension of the original occurrence.

So, this makes it sound like we are doomed to be stuck in a continuous mire of expanding negativity and unwanted experiences in our lives, but that is not the case. It is actually very important to notice what you don’t like, not for the purpose of carrying on with it, but as a way leading to noticing what you do like. In fact you should recognize and accept something undesirable as what is, trying to ignore it can also just perpetuate it.

Once noticed we should release our focus on it and bring our attention to our true spiritual self which is calm and of good feeling. This is the point where what you want, that is different, is energized. You may not be consciously aware of the exact details. Now you can develop specific thoughts about what you want, which then is what you should be focusing on.

Now this doesn’t mean that the only way to get to what you want is that you must experience something unwanted, but it is one common way. We can see what we want in what others have experiences, or in ideas on how something can just be even better than it is. But, generally it requires a point of notice, I’ll call it, where we become aware of something.

The pivotal point is in accepting what is, becoming at one with your true self and noticing what you do want. Then, keeping your thoughts away from the dislike and more on to your true self and what you do want, is important to guide your energy more to the experiences you would like. I know how it is so easy to continue to dwell on something, but if in this very moment you can’t do anything about it, you don’t need to be thinking about it.

Think of the seed analogy, and that every thought and feeling you have is a request to Spirit, God. Now, what do you want to think about? If you treat your thoughts as if they are seeds, just like a physical plant seed, you can come to realize their affect on your life. They are acted upon just as any seed is, it gets what it says it wants.

In fact, by dwelling on something undesirable and allowing your fear, doubt and worry thoughts to become most prevalent, you are closing off your connection to Spirit. Negative thoughts actually cause your brain to shut off the intuitive, creative, receptive faculties, it puts you into ‘fight or flight’ mode.   So you are less likely to get an inspired idea on how to best deal with an ongoing undesirable situation.

Our power is in our command of our thoughts and feelings, which is why paying attention to your thoughts is so important. Setting aside time each day to consciously analyze your thinking and how you feel allows you to discover more about yourself and allows you to then notice how you ‘do’ want to think. Just as you can notice how you would like society to be different in some way, you can notice what you would rather experience in your life, then how your thoughts can be more in alignment with this.

Noticing what you don’t want is the impetus to change. Your feelings about something are meant as a signal to you to notice it, but not to continue to experience long term. It’s like a fire alarm, it’s no longer needed once you know there is a fire. Harboring negative or low level emotions is very destructive to you mentally, spiritually and physically, choose to step away from then as soon as you can. Replace them with a higher level emotional feeling as much as possible.

There is nothing more exciting than being in a life that is going and blowing! I think that term, ‘going and blowing’ is an old railroad analogy, it describes a locomotive that is racing down the tracks full speed with a steady stream of smoke blowing out of the stack. We can use this to relate to living a life of constant self-discovery, personal growth and development.

Now I’m not implying that you should be pushing yourself all the time. There is a big difference between moving forward consistently and confidently, and in being in a hurry, rushing around. Rushing is when you are late for work or are trying to cram too many things into a short time frame, this is not freedom! This kind of behavior comes from a lack mentality, usually including the feeling of not enough time, among others.

When you are in a mode of consistent self-discovery and growth you get very excited with what is going on. You see new possibilities for yourself on a regular basis, which lead to more and more. You feel more and more freedom, the feeling of really being alive and unrestricted.

Even discovering what in your thinking has been responsible for an undesirable condition or behavior is exciting as this opens up your understanding and what you can do about it. You will see first hand how life works, what your role is and how you can best participate. You find out more of what you are capable of, which opens even more possibilities.

Your confidence rises substantially as you take command of your thinking, as well as responsibility for it. Your vision expands greatly as your faith in both your abilities and the possibilities available to you grows. Your ability to just accept your current situation along with taking responsibility for it becomes easier and easier. You see how change is more about choices and faith than about current conditions or past experiences.

You become more open to the new and different, and less attached to your existing beliefs and perceptions. You become comfortable with change as that is really life, always evolving. You stop trying to create a perfect, set, predictable life situation for yourself, as that is just fighting the natural flow of life.

You learn to know the difference between guided and inspired thought and the ego based protection thoughts. You take purposeful action based on the correct thoughts knowing that this is what you ought to do in order to have the experience meet with the idea, your role in the law of attraction.

Human history has shown that all this does not happen very often accidentally, although it does. But if you make it your intention to live your life in constant growth, you will. It is really an every day activity that you will have to develop into. Your days are already full, right. You will want to gradually make room for YOU time to do something related to your self-discovery and growth, and you will see that it will expand into everything that you do.

One thing that can help is to get a picture and even the feeling of what you want, because you will actually want to think, feel and act like the person doing and having what you want, in this case a lifestyle of consistent growth and development. Back to the train analogy, we can elaborate on this picture of the train going down the tracks and how it can relate to our life. It can be useful to have mental pictures that you can relate to as a way to further engage your thinking and enhance your feelings.

• It’s steadily moving forward.
• The scenery is always changing.
• It’s moving confidently, it knows where it’s going.
• It’s being guided on it’s way.
• Moving is what it was created for.
• It’s getting something done.
• It’s involved with people, things and places.
• It has purpose, taking purposeful action.

And maybe there are more aspects we can relate to, what do you think of when visualizing a fast moving train?

You will find that in choosing constant growth rather than trying to create a ‘perfect’ life, life is much more comfortable and satisfying. You will be less likely to be rushing around and more likely to be calm mentally and physically, getting more done - of what you want and enjoy.

                                                                                              
What do you want to be today?    

Happy, joyful and pleasant, OR unhappy, miserable and crabby?

Will you expect good or will be expecting something to go wrong?              

 Will you feel confident in yourself or afraid you aren’t good enough?

 You get the idea here. The thing is, you can actually decide which way you will be. All of your attitudes and feelings are the result of a definition. Your definition of yourself. The key is, this is not set in stone - it is set in your mind. And you can change it. You can choose a new and different self definition if the one you are now holding does not fully support the life that you want.

Of course, you did not sit down one day and lay out your self definition . . but you can! What you think of yourself has developed gradually over the years with much of it being a result of interpretations you made about experiences you were involved in. Now you were not likely consciously aware of these interpretations either, most of them were done based on other past experiences a well. All of these interpretations build upon themselves and without realizing it you just believe it all as just being the way you are.

You can actually change they way you interpret things, as well as the way you see yourself. Your unconscious mind, which is where all the automatic thinking and reactions come from is really serving what it knows that you want. And at some point, you instructed the unconscious mind what you wanted. And it’s function is to serve you. Your unconscious mind acts on your behalf all the time, after all it keeps your body functioning without you having to pay it any attention. 

But there is a key fact with all of this. Your unconscious mind is not in charge - your conscious mind is. It may appear the other way around because so much seems to happen so automatically. The only way your unconscious mind knows what to do is from an order from the conscious mind. And your unconscious mind is very loyal and obedient. What you may have told it 25 years ago, it is still following as law. Your conscious mind is in charge. You can issue new commands to your unconscious obedient mind when you choose. The only catch is - that you must first know that you can. Well, now you know.

Now you can pay attention to what is happening automatically with your thought, your attitude, your perceptions - everything can be changed. You can decide which of these automatic functions serves you well in the way you want your life to be. You can rewrite the script for these thoughts and behaviors. Just because you have had a certain demeanor does not mean you are stuck with it. How do you want to carry yourself all day long? Your attitude? Your reactions? Your tone of voice with others? How you see everything?

Once you begin to notice characteristics about yourself, you can see which ones you like and which ones not so much fit your ideal way. Then, you can choose how you would rather heave it be. You can choose to be pleasant, happy, trusting, confident and more. And at the beginning of the day is a fine time to set things straight. In the morning, right after awaking from sleep, you can tell yourself what you will be like today. You can preset your disposition and your attitude. And know this will affect everything you do and experience. In this universe we are in, like attracts like - it’s a law.

You can declare, “I AM calm” “I am at peace.” “I am happy.” “I am confident.” “I am good with change.” “I am highly capable.” Now this may take a little while to take effect. It’s possible to change right away, but your unconscious programming may need a little coaxing to drop something it has operated with for many years. It will tend to fall back to the old ways in the beginning. But you, being in charge consciously, have the power to outlast your unconscious mind as long as you stay alert and diligent. I won’t say it’s not easy to fall back, it is, but you are stronger than your unconscious programming - you are in charge, consciously.

So, in the morning, set yourself up to be more like you want. Choose to be happy and joyous, and to treat people well - including yourself! Use affirmative statements repeatedly essentially to convince your unconscious of what you want, it will get the message and make the changes. Set the tone for yourself, and your day. You will be amazed at how much better things seem to go.

It’s your life, your mind - so take command, and choose.

John

A while back I saved an article I read about a girls college softball team that did something amazing. They identified with positive motivating statements and started winning games. This is a perfect example of how self-talk and affirmations can affect your actions.

It started when coach Kathy Straham of Sacramento State looked up 10 motivational sports related sayings and asked each player to pick two that they could relate to. The girls took this to heart and after receiving the sayings they started to win games, in fact they logged 8 consecutive victories ending the season as winning their conference.

Here are a few of the sayings that helped motivate the players into believing in themselves;

“The best way to predict your future is to create it.” – unknown

“Ask not what your teammates can do for you; ask what you can do for your teammates.”
– Magic Johnson

“Champions keep playing until they get it right.” – Billie Jean King

“If you really want to do something, you’ll find a way; if you don’t, you’ll find and excuse.” – unknown

If you say these statements to yourself and allow yourself to get excited about the meaning, your motivation will increase. When your motivation increases, you will do more, do it better and with more energy. Then you will see some success, which in turn increases your motivation, your energy and your desire to take actions. With more success comes more motivation, more energy, more action . . .

See what happens – all from a statement that you choose to internalize and get emotional about in a positive way. Many think that repeating positive phrases does nothing towards success. I know different and so does the team described above.

The power of doing this is in what it does to your thinking, then your feelings – that’s where the power is. If you are not experiencing what you want, your thinking is not supporting what you want, it can’t be any other way. By repeating a positive supportive phrase that is in alignment with what you want and who you want to be, you are essentially retraining your  minds default thinking. Default thinking is those thoughts that just come up on their own, you can change that with better more supportive thoughts.
What statements can you come up with that support what you want?

What statements can you get intense feelings about?

Find them, read them, think about them, and imagine through them.

It starts with ‘I think I can’

As you make attempts with this mindset it will get easier to do and you will start to see more ways to align your thinking with the life direction or accomplishment you desire.

 
John Halderman

Personal growth and development is an ongoing process and many people seeking to make changes in their lives know that any success comes from changing their thought. But also many find this to be not as straight forward as they thought. With the movie, “The Secret” the Law of Attraction has been brought out and embraced by many, but the movie actually is just a basic introduction on the Law of Attraction not a full blown ‘how to’ course.

Unfortunately many are left thinking that all they need to do is think their way into any success or new life experience. Managing your thinking is a large part of how you make changes but not all there is to it. It does not help that some teachers just do focus on the changing of your thought without delving any deeper. This basic part of The Law of Attraction deals with only your conscious thought, but does not get into the power your unconscious thought holds over your everyday thinking, feeling and behavior. (more…)

Are you trying to be successful at something, or with
several areas in your life? This is a characteristic normal
for us human creatures, to feel good about our abilities
and accomplishments. We seem to be continuously striving
for something more to feel good about. We so often think
that we are not doing or being what we want.

When actually, it’s not a matter of finding out ‘how’ to
have success in your life, but rather how and where to
direct your success. The problem is not, not being a
success. The thing is you actually already are very
successful every day, but maybe not at what you would like.

You are successfully living your life, your body is
functioning and you are thinking about something every day,
all day.  Now if you weren’t having any thoughts at all, I
would be concerned.  And since you are thinking about
something, you are receiving the fulfillment of those
thought requests without fail. 

The universe doesn’t fail itself, and since you are a part
of it you will not be failed either.  Just as a plant seed
always gets what it requests, so do you. So then why don’t
you get everything you think you want? You want it so you
must be requesting it right.

Well, again you actually are getting everything that you
are requesting.  I know it seems like I’m taking you in a
circle here but think about this for a moment, how do you
know what a tulip has requested from the universe? Well,
the tulip would not be a tulip if it had requested
something else. The way to tell what has been requested is
by the evidence that is present. 

Then, the other aspect you have is your mental capacity to
reason, think and choose.  Sure some other creatures have a
little of this aspect but nothing like we do.  A cat can
decide to seek out a warm sunny spot to lay in, but it
can’t learn a new trade or change the way it perceives
things like you can. This second mental ability is one
where you decide what is in the seed - your seed. You have
the ability to design what the seed will request from the
universe, let’s call it your ‘creative seed’. 

Now this part is important to understand, just like the
tulip seed and your physical body, your ‘creative seed’ is
always activated with the universe.  This means the
universe is constantly reading your request within your
‘creative seed’, thus it is always responding in kind. Here
is the scary part, your thoughts, all of them, are the
‘creative seed’ which is a continuous active request link
to the intelligent universe.  So everything you are
thinking is your ‘creative seed’ whether you are or are not
consciously aware of it. 

This is why it is so critically important to make it your
main objective all day every day to discover what you are
thinking and adjust it to be congruent with that which best
serves what you want in your life. When you may say that
you want something, but all the while your inner thoughts
are pointed elsewhere and your behavior is reinforcing
something else, your ‘want’ doesn’t hold much weight in the
request seen by the universe. Your predominant thoughts and
actions are so strong; the universe can’t hear what you
really want.

You are right now completely successful at what you have
invested your thoughts and energies to, even if you are not
totally aware of them. Your experience in life has a direct
correlation to what you think about and feel strongly about
most of the time. There is an exact relationship to the
percentage of time you allot to any thoughts and your life
experience.

So if you want to be successful at something other than
what you are successful at today, you will need to devote a
higher percentage of your thoughts, feelings and energies
in ways that are more in alignment with these desires. Just
occasional lip service will not do.

All of your thoughts combined are what is included inside
of your ’seed’ that the universe works to fulfil for you.
So ask yourself, “How much of the volume or space in the
seed is taken up with what I deeply want and how much of it
is what I don’t want, don’t like, put up with or just
complain about?” You are constantly creating this seed, and
from this you are completely successful based on what’s in
it.

To change this, you will need to take command of your
everyday thinking, choose to have more of your thoughts,
feelings and actions be congruent with your deep desires.
Using your valuable thought time to complain, ridicule,
doubt, worry, feel angry, resent someone, and many other
negative type thoughts, just steal time you can be filling
your ’seed’ with what you really want. Plus, you will just
get more in your life to complain, resent, worry about and
all the rest - is that what you really want?

Some people have actually kept track, in time, of their
thoughts all day long in order to discover what percentage
of time they devote to certain ideas. With this you can
discover what undesirable thinking you want to replace with
the aligned thinking you want.

Take command of your thinking now by aligning more of your
thoughts with your deepest desires, you will see your
feelings and actions follow suit, then your life experience
will too. Choose what you are successful at by redirecting
the same tools and power you now use to get what you now
have.  
John Halderman

Another article in the ‘Daily Action For Self Improvement’ series, articles focusing on the personal development and growth actions you can take daily to support a high level of happiness and satisfaction in your life.

In looking what you can do each day to support what you want in your life - check your thinking throughout the day.

Ask a simple question of yourself, “Am I a magnet for what I want?”

You see, your predominate thoughts direct your magnet. Unfortunately, spending a lot of time thinking about what we don’t want seems to be the norm.

But doing this just defines your creation magnet - so you are essentially requesting more of what you don’t want.

You do this when you re-play in your head;

What you don’t like,
What you are upset about,
What you worry about,
What you are afraid of

And, this is so easy to do, it is automatic. But it doesn’t have to be. You can stop and shift ‘thought gears’ whenever you want.

The first option is to switch your focus onto something, anything that you can feel good about. Get yourself to delve into this topic for a while to divert your attention.

It is easier to replace thought with another thought than it is to try to get yourself to just stop the current thinking. Replace your thought with something desirable.

A second option when you catch yourself stuck in ‘the negative thought spiral’ is to look for the opposite of what you are thinking. Usually at the opposite of a dislike is something you would want. Identify this and place your focus on it, allowing yourself to feel better.

Wherever your mind is - you are seeking more, even if it is what you don’t want. So, train yourself to not remain in that state of whirling around in what you don’t want - use that to look for the opposite, what you do like. Or even just switch to thinking about anything to get your mind into a happier place.

To get yourself to begin to notice more often what you are thinking about try this:

Get a 3 x 5 card to take with you for the day.

Write on it -

“What am I thinking about right now?”

“Does it make me happy?”

“What else can I be thinking?”

Keep this where you will see it often. It’s good to put it somewhere where you will accidentally notice it without thinking about it. This helps you catch yourself off guard so you can take notice of your thoughts. Using a tool like this can help you to learn to take more notice to what you are thinking all the time.

When you are aware of your thoughts, you can decide if you want to change them.

John Halderman

John Halderman teaches and writes in the areas of personal growth and development focusing on effective methods for self actualization, increased satisfaction and happiness. For more:
http://www.effectivepersonaldevelopmentblog.com
http://www.designalifesystem.com