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

Part 2: Think about thinking or Be its Slave
Part 3: The Key to Getting Everything You Desire

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

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

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. 

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!

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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!

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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.”

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.

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

Black Holes and Happy Places

         This morning (or what passes for morning in my world, which ideally is more like noon) I was contemplating the still, boundary-less center place from which our sense of self emerges. I was thinking how interesting it is that embedded in our culture is the idea of a "happy place." If we are having a rough time, we might be teasingly told to "Go to our happy place." In our culture, this idea has a slightly derisive underlying context. It brings to mind the notion of a fantasy land hidden somewhere in our imagination. It is a place we can flee to where we can avoid dealing with some current unpleasantness, making it an escapist fantasy or a form of denial. 

         However, such a happy place not only exists within each of us, it is the underlying core from which we arise. It is our true center. When you touch upon it, joy and peace flow into you. When you operate from this center place, boundaries dissolve and unity resounds. To operate from your true center, to act from your happy place, is what is meant by words like enlightenment or awakening.

         Going within is fundamental.
It's reaching deeper










 and deeper

and deeper down

until we touch our own soul, our center place, the center place from which we arise. It is our real, abiding happy place. It is neither fantasy nor imagination. It is deeper than thought, deeper than emotion, deeper even than our sense of self. It is like the atom. The atom is the building block of all matter in the universe; and yet, the atom has at its center a nucleus consisting of a neutron and a proton, and if Nassim Haramein is correct -- then the proton has at its center a micro black hole.

         A proton is composed of two up quarks and a down quark which together maintain a positive charge. Normally, that positive charge would cause these particles to fly apart. That would be bad. That would be the end of matter everywhere! Gone would be tacos. It's an unbearable thought! A universe without tacos. Intolerable! Fortunately for us and for tacos, there exists what physicists call the Strong Force which holds these positively charged particles together. In the physical universe, the Strong Force is supreme. There is nothing greater in the food chain of forces, not even the attractive force of crispy, taco-y perfection (although, in this moment, it's a close call).

         The event horizon of a black hole is the place in space from which nothing can escape the gravity of that black hole. Haramein discovered that if you calculate the event horizon of a black hole that is exactly the same size as a proton, that black hole would exert an amount of force exactly equaling the Strong Force, which is fascinating. This implies that the Strong Force is actually the gravity field exerted by a mini black hole lying at the center of every atom in existence. It also brings us back to our metaphor.

         If the atom is the building block of the universe, then the soul is the building block of humanity. It is that which cannot be divided down any further without humanity being lost. Or, if you, my imaginary reader, will permit me to be more bold, I will say that the soul is the fundamental building block of life. Both the atom and the soul are fundamental building blocks.

         Like the atom can be further sub-divided into an electron cloud and a nucleus; the soul can likewise be sub-divided into thoughts and emotions (which generate change and experience) and into that which is thinking the thoughts and feeling the emotions and experiencing the experience. The soul can be categorized as the seer and what is seen, or the perceiver and that which is perceived, or as the boundary-less sense of self and all that the self senses.

         We see our finger. Therefore, we know we are not our finger, because there must be a difference between what we see and what we are, since seeing occurs beyond or outside of our sense of self. If we lose our finger, we do not lose our sense of self. If we lose a thought, we ourselves are not lost. We abide. Likewise with emotions; when an emotion passes, we remain. So we cannot be thoughts or emotions. We are that which thinks thought and feels emotions. We are our sense of self and our sense of self lies at our center. It is what defines center. It is the center from which all else can be pointed to and therefore lies outside of.

         It goes a step further though.

There is something deeper even, than our sense
of self.



         Just as the nucleus of an atom can be further broken down into a neutron and a proton, and the proton can be reduced to the gravity field of a mini black hole and the particle interactions taking place within that gravity field, so too can the soul, or the sense of self be reduced down into unending, eternal inter-connectedness, the "gravity field" of Spirit, the universal field of consciousness in which the limitless interactions between souls, and matter, and everything else through which Spirit experiences itself unfolds or arises.

         Deeper than the sense of self is the sense of Oneness, the sense of the Timeless. Deeper than the sense of self is the Groundless Ground, the One, Spirit, Void, the Ground of Being, God. These are words have been used to try to name that which can't be named, or describe that which can't be described. It is Truth. It is That from everything else is made, That from which all that is arises and into which all that is dissolves. It is the whole of which we are parts, just as we (and everything else) are also a whole made up of parts. It is the place from which our happy place arises.

         Our happy place is a great place to experience life from. The closer we come to living life from our happy place, the more significant our life becomes.

         The closer we come to living life from our happy place, the more juice bursts out of our soul. Remember, like stars we burn! On the level of soul, we broadcast constantly. What we broadcast is life-energy filtered through or colored by the energy of our thoughts and emotions. We cannot not project the energy of our experiences. The energy of our lives continually bursts out of our souls, out of our bodies and blasts out into space, touching everyone around us.

         Remember, experience arises as the result of the energy of our thoughts and emotions manifesting as behavior, both our own behavior and the responses that both our energy and our behavior invite in others as the energy we broadcast mixes with and helps shape their thoughts and emotions, which they in turn manifest as behavior. Let me say it from the perspective of the other.
     

       Twin levels of perception or twin streams of information are occurring and converging simultaneously, sometimes consciously, sometime unconsciously. A behavior is observed and then translated by the brain. That behavior is sorted into units of meaning and connected into a story. This story causes thought and thought causes emotions and responses. At the same time, incoming energy washes over us; this energy is likewise interpreted and sorted for meaning. Then both streams of information are used side by side. We interpret the both the behavior and the energy that accompanies the behavior. Together, this information shapes the units of meaning that cause thought and get converted into a narrative; which, in turn, manifests as a response. The response can be a behavior, an emotion, or another thought. And so on, and so on, and so on.

         Think of it as two huge highways, each with many lanes. The highways converge. The two roads merge into one and we travel down that one super-huge highway until we take the exit that leads to the thought, emotion or behavior that we select. I know, it's complicated, and yet, it happens all the time!

         The only way to get off the road altogether, to rest from the bustling super highway and the endless exits into cause and effect, into the trials and struggles of life, is to sink down into our happy place. Then, even as the vehicle of our life speeds down the highway of experience, our happy place awaits, urging and inviting us to visit and rest there for a spell. Or, if we choose, to move into our happy place permanently. We can experience everything from that timeless and peaceful perspective.      

 Everything and everyone are endlessly interconnected. Our happy place is a link between the Everything that we are interconnected with, the Everything that we are a indivisible part of and the sensation of individual-ness that is our own soul.

         It is time to take back our happy place! Our happy place isn't an escapist fantasy; it isn't a place to avoid reality. Our happy place is our most fundamental, underlying center from which our sense of self arises. Even if we are not presently able to sense the distance between our sense of self and the deeper place that is our True center, the further down we sink in the direction of Truth, the closer we get to our center, the more peace and joy we feel, the more a sense of abiding, contented calmness floods into our soul.

         Abiding love and inner peace call to themselves and the closer we come to living life from our happy place, the more our life invites others to sink ever closer to their own happy place. It is a beautiful paradigm of endlessly inviting out the best in both ourselves and others by operating from as close to our center place as we can. It may be our happy place, but the ocean it floats on encompasses everyone and everything. Perhaps we can all visit one another on the islands of our happy place!

Love and Aloha,
Holman

Finding Your True Self

Just play a simple game with yourself to find yourself.

People like Eckhart Tolle talk about the power of presence, of being in the Present. They speak about the power of “being here now.” I’ve read their books and I’ve listened to their words. It’s not a new idea, the notion that nothing really exists but the eternal now, this very present moment. It’s not a new idea that both the past and the future are nothing more than thought. They are both mental constructs. They are the result of stringing the ever-present now together like a strand of pearls. Memory collects and forms pearls strung out on the backend and imagination projects, creating pearls stretching out on the front side. But we’ll come back to that in a moment.

Suffering Sucks! How to Make it Stop.

You Don't Have to Suffer. You Can Make it Stop!

So, we were talking about how suffering is type of thinking; how suffering isn't real, how suffering is a thought we think when we experience painful sensations. Sensations like pain rise up when something painful is actually, physically present. Pain is unpleasant but always, always passes. If we experience pain as a sensation, then the exact moment pain passes, it is forever gone and we feel it no more.

If we turn pain into suffering by dwelling on it, by thinking about it, by giving attention to it, by telling ourselves and others stories about it -- then when the sensation of pain runs its natural course and is gone -- our suffering might still go on for hours, or days, or years. Suffering will continue forever if we keep feeding it attention. Suffering cannot end -- ever, as long as we keep turning the pages on our inner story of wrong doing or hurt or anger, or any other thought or emotion that feeds the beast of suffering.

Okay, so it is easy to suggest that suffering can cease the exact moment we stop feeding it with our attention, or pumping life into it with the thoughts we think and the emotions we won't let go of. But where the rubber hits the road is the obvious next question:

Suffering is Optional!

It's the middle of the night. I can't sleep to save my life. I'm utterly miserable -- this lousy night had to go! I just wanted it to end. I begged by brain to let go and let me drift away.  My emotions were roller-coasting like crazy. Up and down, crazy one moment and calm the next, I was making myself nuts! My brain wouldn't turn off and it was all sour with negative thoughts, critical and complaining, running the same things over and over again, in endless varieties of "oh poor me." I kept catching myself at it, but the emotions were too bright and I'd slip down into the negative cycle of sour thoughts again and again. Finally, finally, I fell asleep. 

The following morning, which came WAY too early, I felt myself getting grumpy. I watched myself creating grumpiness. Becoming aware of my grumpy thoughts, as thoughts, helped me put an end to them right away. I was NOT going to spend the day the way I'd spent the night. I pondered this experience, and this is what I realized: