Saturday, September 27, 2014

The 4 Things You Have to Know About to Get What You Want 2.0

The Secret to Getting What You Really Want: 
Why the Law of Attraction can work FOR you or "against" you

Part One

Since the Law of Attraction is a law, why is it that it doesn't seem to work? Why is there so much confusion around the subject of manifesting our desires? It is supposed to be simple and that simplicity resonates with so many of us, so what's going on? Since we can't escape the consequences of our own thoughts, feelings and behavior i.e., the Law of Attraction, let's start working FOR ourselves instead of "against" ourselves.

 Here are the four core principles that together describe how the law of attraction operates in our lives.

The law of Attraction states:

·         Whatever you want, you get.
·         Whatever you believe,  proves itself true.
·         Whatever you think about, surrounds you.
·         Whatever you feel, invites more of that feeling into your experience.

These four core components of the law of attraction all operate simultaneously,
 and therein lies the rub. So let's take a very brief look at each of them in turn.

One:  Whatever you want, you get.
We get what we truly want, but our desires are confused and conflicted and so our lives become messy. We say we want something, but we don’t believe we deserve it; or we desire things that are opposite each other, or a million other conflicting signals. So, guess what happens?

Two:  Whatever you believe, proves itself true.
Many of our beliefs were created by hurt and suffering, or by confusion and contraction, or by feelings of rejection and abandonment. So much wounding and pain, it distorted our perception of ourselves and others. Many of these distorted beliefs were formed in our childhood when we simply could not understand the complexities of the world around us. These are the ideas we adopted that tell us we are not good, or worthy, or deserving; not pretty enough, or thin enough, or rich enough. These are the ideas we cling to that demand we should look a certain way or act a certain way;  think certain things, but not think other certain things.Then, not wanting to be wrong, we select information, create events, and think thoughts that proves all these conclusions correct.

Three:  Whatever you think about, surrounds you.
Our thoughts are a mess, jumbled and scattered. Our thoughts are often negative and mean to both ourselves and others, and so our lives become uncertain and chaotic, our feelings get hurt and bad things happen. Our mind is all over the map.

Four:  Whatever you feel, invites more of that feeling into your experience.
Our feelings arise out of this mess, but like attracts like. So if we put energy into fear or anger, then that energy attracts more things to be fearful of, or angry about, straight back into our lives.

It all comes down to the energy that we continually broadcast, stars radiating into space. This energy is circular, a boomerang that we throw away from us as mightily as we can. Yet, we are consistently surprised with it loops back around and smacks us right in the face.

So what is the real secret?

It All Starts With a Thought


At the beginning of every desire is a thought.

At the beginning of every belief is a thought.

At the beginning of every feeling is a belief or a thought.

We’ve all heard it: change your thinking and change your life.

Which is true --- absolutely correct --- spot on.


We create our experience of life by the quality of the thoughts we pay attention to.

Attention is our most precious resource: more precious than love, more precious than time; more precious than a lover or a spouse, children or family, riches or fame. Attention is even more precious than chocolate or tacos. Our entire experience occurs in the field of our perception, and our perception follows where we place our attention.




It All Starts With a Thought



So, since it all starts with a thought, isn’t it a good idea to understand how thoughts work? That will be part two of this essay. And since it all starts with a thought, I welcome your thoughts below. What do YOU think?    

Question: I summarized the law of attraction by condensing it into four core concepts. If you would like me to elaborate on the four core concepts that make up the law of attraction, please let me know in the comments section below. Thank you for spending these few moments with me.


With love and aloha,

Holman

Friday, September 26, 2014

The 4 Things You Have to Know About to Get What You Want

The Secret to Getting What You Really Want: 
Why the Law of Attraction can work FOR you or "against" you



Please read version 2.0 above.
or            Click here

Thursday, September 18, 2014

Feeding Baby Birds


A mother's work is never done. As universal truths go, that one seems to apply across the board. Not even birds can file for an extension. Imagine finding the mud and straw of a swallow’s nest clinging to the corner nook of the girder supporting the parking structure right above your assigned space. Like me, wouldn't you stop and look? The baby birds are just big enough to poke their heads over the edge of their nest; their baby bird mouths doing what baby bird mouths do.

“Feed me, Seymour!”


Their beaks gape and little, mewing bird noises are an unending chirp that ripples out like bawling from a baby monitor. From across the lot, Mom swoops down, darts under the roof, and almost faster than the eye can follow, she fills a hungry mouth. She doesn't land or perch - like a humming bird she hovers - there is no time to rest. She streaks away toward the swamp grass and cattails on the other side of the complex, hunting her baby's next mouthful. Moments later she’s back, thrusting her catch into another gaping baby beak. And so it goes, back and forth, again and again.

You can almost hear her sigh and exclaim, “What can you do? A mother’s work is never done.”

This is precisely the relationship each one of us has to the negative ideas and beliefs that clog up the container of our souls. Like baby birds, these bubbles of thought cry out, demanding that we feed them attention. And like baby birds, they are never full. So we swoop in and feed them, over and over again.

Baby birds will eventually mature, leave the nest and fly away to the nearest Starbucks for a latte. Unlike baby birds, a thought never grows up, never changes its story. Rather, it invites all its friends over, until you have a gaggle of yammering thoughts all spouting slight variations on the same sad story, all competing for the morsels out of your mouth.

It is worth considering the life cycle of a thought, which I will turn to in my next post. For now, the compelling picture of our little swallow friends is a powerful, visual reminder that we do not have to be the mother to our negative, self-limiting thoughts that cry out for feeding. We do not need to endlessly, frantically swoop back and forth, over and over to stuff their gaping beaks.

Instead,

 We can be the grouchy, terrifying lunch room lady glaring at these unruly thoughts over the counter and refusing to serve them. 

Well, maybe not grouchy and maybe not terrifying; but definitely steadfast in taking a stand against the kind of thoughts that undermine our well-being and esteem. Carl Weber calls these “Self-Referential” thoughts. We can also stand firm against negative, unhelpful, blame centered stories: The poor me's and how-dare-you's that pollute our minds with the slightest of provocations.  We can choose not to feed them and when we become aware of such a thought sneaking into our mind, we can stamp our foot, cross our arms and say,

“No!”

“Stop!”

Then we can fill that space with its opposite. We can find something joyful to acknowledge in its place. This shift changes everything. It transforms our relationships and our lives: a huge payoff. While it takes a lot of practice to watch your own thinking and banish the monkey madness that still enjoys flinging poo, it is worth the effort.

Give it a try. Decide that for this week, you will watch your thoughts. When a negative or hurtful, self-limiting or judgmental thought arises; the moment you become aware of it, you will just stop.

– STOP –

Then fondly, gently remind yourself: 
“Oh, there I go again. Silly monkey mind.” 
Then invite your higher mind, the reflection of the Divine within, to fill you with something positive and uplifting to replace whatever triggered your negative thought. For example, if someone makes you angry:  First, 
– STOP – 
Your anger arises from an evaluation, which is based upon an idea of how things should be, compared to how they actually are. An evaluation is just another thought; so when you catch yourself thinking it
 – STOP – 
Then find something about that person for which you are grateful. Then, if you choose to address the issue that triggered your anger reaction, you do so from a much more loving space. You maximize the possibility that your conflict partner will hear you and not react with instant defensiveness. This really pays off, and the odds are forever in your favor. All you have to do is watch your thoughts.

You can do it. What do you have to say to that? I invite you to comment below.

With Love and Aloha,
Holman



Thursday, September 11, 2014

Don't Let your Mind be Mean to you!


for You and about You

The only thing that is unchanging in your life,
The only thing that is permanent,
         Not even diamonds are forever
Is your sense of being,
Is your sense of self.
It is your awareness of being a Self.

It is to know that there is a Me
Somewhere inside you.
         At the Center of your universe. 
Me is awareness; Me is your sense of self.
Me is your awareness of existing.


To sink beneath the tumultuous rumbling of your
         Fear and fiction,
              Misunderstanding and mistakes,
                   Ignorance and selfishness,
To sink beneath the pettiness and pleasures,
         Of our obstacles and distractions,
              The unending layers of thought
                   That define your “I,”

Is to sink 
Through the portal of your sense of Self 
And into the sweet ocean 
Of Divine Radiance that is your natural state. 

Friday, September 5, 2014

4 question survey about Relationships

4 question survey about Relationships: Please take this 4 question survey about what people really want and need in their personal and romantic relationships. It only took me five minutes to fill out and I could really use your help!

You know you want to click here



Please help me out with this very short survey for my class up at Utah State University. Mom says it is thought provoking, interesting, and even fun to take. Thanks a million!

Click Here to Help Me Out

Who am I?

Who am I?

I lay sleepless in bed, starring into darkness punctuated not with stars, but rather the dull red fire of the smoke alarm and left-over light leaking from my laptop. A hint of illumination creeps past my curtains. I find myself contemplating personality and I ask myself the question: “Since personality is created by social interactions in early childhood, who am I if my personality is peeled off?” My mind touches the infinite and I shy away. There is no personality in the infinite.


I find myself thinking about death.

What if my personality doesn't survive dying? Since it arises from life, denied life wouldn't personality, like the body, simply dissolve back into that from which it arose? For if all things born of life die, then why should personality be privileged?  My mind returns to the original question: “Who am I underneath personality?” I had no answer and felt afraid. Not of dying, but of losing my Self. The night died and in time my fear died with it – for I answered my own question. I found that which remains when all else is stripped away.

Me.

You may recall the philosopher, Rene Descartes. In his Discourse on Method, he related the story of sitting by his fire, wondering what can actually be absolutely known with perfect certainty. The more he pondered, the more he concluded that to answer the question, he must question all belief and opinion; he must strip away all assumption, down to the most absolute and undeniable: That he himself exists. Nothing else could withstand the cutting edge of his logic, except his existence itself. For if he didn't exist – there could be no logic to cut with and no one left to ask the question. To think, he concluded, is unmistakable proof of existence. Sadly, he stopped one step short. It is true that to think is self-evident proof of being, for there is undeniably that which thinks.


However, through mindfulness meditation, we discover that thinking is not fundamental. In learning to quietly watch the mind, but not attach to its content or processes, over time you begin to develop an awareness that notices both the birth of a thought and the serene silence in which that thought is born. Likewise, no thinking takes place in deep, dreamless sleep. Yet come morning, we still exist. So there must be something deeper than Descartes’ thinking.

It is not Descartes' “I think, therefore I am” – but rather Christ’s “I am that I am.”

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So what is this, which lies beneath even thinking? Awareness. How is it that we know we think? It is awareness that we touch in meditation and that awareness is our true being. Within pure awareness lives our eternal sense of self, the unquestionable knowing that we exist and that we are. Meditation aims to quiet the mind, to still the unending river of babble that rages across our frantically thinking brain, bursting out and flooding our field of perception. Yet, in that golden silence, when no thought violates the utter harmony of stillness, there is still a Me to notice the difference between monkey mind madness and the peace and contentment that permeates mental silence.  

Me.

Now, as I lie in bed and the smoke alarm smiles its little light into the room, dancing with the luminescence of lingering light from the laptop and mingling with moonlight shining through the curtains, I find no fear. Personalities are useful, but they are not necessary for existence, so to lose them is no loss. Nor does death’s chill breath freeze my heart, for even that great, last passage cannot change the unchangeable; cannot take away that which is absolute.


Me.

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Underneath all the things I think that I am, there lies a Me with no need to think, a Me that simply observes all that is, a Me that endures. Strip away the ego, peel back the personality and what remains is Me. Me transcends both life and death. Me is eternal. Me has no boundaries, no qualities, no end and no beginning. Me has no self. Me simply is. “I” is all that gets piled on top of Me, all that distorts, that hurts, that fears. “I” clings. Me has nothing it clings to. Me exists in an unending state of peace, contentment, and joy. “I” suffers. Me does not. “I” thinks; Me experiences. “I” makes stories out of experience, distorting events with biased projections, unfounded and untested conclusions, and slanted emotional overrides. Me does not; Me simply is.

Why does the distinction matter?

That, my dear reader, will be the subject of our next exploration together. But meanwhile, who are you?

Me.

With love and aloha,
Holman