Live Lights On!

Intention: I Am.

Saturday Night Live’s Stuart Smalley made us smile with his use of positive self talk. “I’m good enough. I’m smart enough. And doggone it, people like me” was averred by Al Franken as he played this character.

While he found eye contact with his reflection in the mirror, viewers detected a mildly desperate man placing all his hopes of self esteem into this one technique.  His self affirmations ultimately served as easy targets for our jeers.    Those who practice affirmations as a way of creating a vision fulfilled life, know much more than self esteem can be realized and desperation has no place in the practice.   If we want to enhance affirmation skills, unfortunately, Mr. Smalley should not be the model we look to.  Instead, look to the marketing industry.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said it best, “We become what we think about all day long.”  If you need proof of Emerson’s insights, just peek at marketing.   Advertisers have long known the secret.  The more people are surrounded with an idea or a product, the more likely they are buy into it.  Need more proof?    A 30 second Super Bowl commercial can bring in over a million dollars.  Companies won’t waste a cool million on tactics that don’t work.  Advertising is still around and still interrupting our television shows because it works! In some form, we do become what we think about, which is why successful vision oriented people surround themselves with the positive outcomes they’d like to attract.

Businesses know advertising is an investment.  So too are affirmations.  Positive self talk allows an individual to invest in their vision, their dream.  Play around with these sentence starters as a way to focus the investment in yourself.

• I am _____________.

-abundant, happy, certain, successful, prosperous, intelligent

• Today, I intend to ____________.

-celebrate two successes, come up with a brilliant idea, laugh at myself

• I  always find ___________.

-loyal clients, supportive colleagues, a new idea when I need it

Should SNL ever bring back Stuart Smalley, we’ll laugh at his self esteem boosting antics, all the while knowing we should do the opposite.  He’ll be our reminder to think big and be open.

Intention: Think Ahead vs. Worry Ahead

Let’s work under a premise that sages, spiritual leaders, and the intellectually enlightened have been telling us for thousands of years.  Ralph Waldo Emerson summed it up best, “We become what we think about all day long.”  The more attention you give something, the more it grows.  The thoughts and ideas streaming through our heads take on a whole new dimension when viewed from this premise.  We should not waste one more minute deliberating doubt, uneasiness, or apprehension.   These are all forms of worry and stories that we tell ourselves, which do not move us successfully forward.

Maura had a successful real estate career and knew her business well.  However, mistakes happen even in the midst of good intentions and Maura made a costly mistake for one of her former clients.  She admitted fault and tried her best to make it better, but her client would not accept reparations and threatened legal action.  Maura fretted and worried incessantly for two days.  Then Maura changed her mind.   She recognized what went wrong and chalked it up to experience.  As for her former client, Maura envisioned a calm, peaceful outcome.  She purposely and frequently reviewed all the good interactions she had with this client before the relationship went sour.  “This woman was in a position to make my life very difficult.  I had to remain humble.”  The instant she found herself leaning towards worry, Maura immediately sent out a good thought to this client.  “In my mind, she converted into a close friend rather than potential enemy.  I wished her all the best, much as I do with all my friends.”  Months passed and now years have passed without any litigious actions against Maura.  “Now whenever I think of my mistake and that client, I send her a silent ‘thank you.’  I am so grateful she chose a peaceful resolution.”

Thinking ahead is different from worrying ahead.  Intention sprouts and grows under the mind’s command, making thoughts and ideas very powerful, therefore making humans very powerful.   Forward thinking entrepreneurs continually make bridge plans or set intentions with rapt attention to the words they use both aloud and silently.  There is little room for doubt and worry when only successful visions are allowed.

You’re Magnetic!

With a keen sense of curiosity, it’s sometimes fun to take personal inventory of the energy fields surrounding us.   Energy fields contain that flow or current of ideas from which we experience life. Your energy field contains ideas that are helpful to your journey as well as ideas that are draining to your journey.  Ideally, we hope our fields carry only ideas that benefit our lives, but realistically a few unbeneficial ones get in.  Let’s dive into our own energy field by first identifying it and all three of its levels, then by seeing what’s in it.  We’ll expect to find some energies floating around that do not support our greater vision, so naturally we’ll learn some tools to help these energies exit.

By definition an energy field, or aura, is the energetic or vibrational force that influences our emotions, attitudes, physicality, and spirituality.  The understanding of it is quite a bit more challenging to pinpoint.  Imagine yourself in the middle of a bubble that extends three feet from you in every direction.  You are in the center of this invisible bubble, which is your personal energy field. Now imagine within your bubble space, hundreds or even thousands of smaller bubbles representing ideas of how you see the world.  Perhaps one little bubble holds the belief, “Jazz music makes me feel relaxed.”  Another little bubble carries the idea, “Accounting is enjoyable,” yet another, “Chocolate gives me hiccups.”  All these bubbles are moving around and bumping into one another, but totally affect how you experience life.

Now let’s pull the lens out a bit farther out from our personal energy field.  The near field is yet another energy field generating ideas for you to have.  The near field includes community, family, work, and those people and places close to us.  It interacts with our personal field on a daily, minute to minute bases.  The distant energy system is composed of energy fields that do not directly cross paths with your personal energy field, but can greatly influence your energy.   How do these two fields contribute to the overall health of your personal field?  Very much.

As Kyle drove home from work, he reviewed his day.  Proudly, he recalled averting conflict with one client, while receiving accolades for his work with another.  In addition, he signed on three new accounts and heard praise from his boss.  It was a good day.  So when Kyle crossed the viaduct continuing home, he wondered why he suddenly became anxious and sad.   Perplexed, he let it go and focused on the day’s positive events.  Later that evening, Kyle received the heartbreaking call from his mom.  Grandpa Sam, Kyle’s favorite grandpa, had just passed away from a massive heart attack.  Kyle realized his earlier anxiousness and sadness came from the energetic impact of this news upon his family.  There was no rational explanation for Kyle to feel randomly upset as he drove home especially after such a great day.  He knew the near energy field of his family had impacted his mood without him knowing it.

Kyle’s story is the most common and obvious.  Of course those around us daily are going to impact our lives.   World events also affect us, but in a much more subtle way.  Recall the nation’s reaction to Kennedy’s death.  Happiness was sparse and celebratory events cancelled to allow for large scale mourning.  Politics aside, everyone felt the energetic shift in some form during that time.  Now focus on the Olympics.  What energetic flow surges through us when these athletes win big?  It’s joyous and light, even if we’re not following the games.  Distant energy fields, although not poignant, lightly shape our personal field flow.

Recognizing these three levels of energetic influence allows us the freedom to choose. Choose what belongs in our field and what does not.  Choosing begins with awareness.  When below-the-line thoughts and feelings creep up, we can put our awareness to their origination.   “Suddenly, I’m feeling guilty about skiing in Europe over the holidays,” Chris recounts.  Previously, Chris was very lights-on about his up-coming trip.  Chris took a moment to himself to get in touch with this guilt.   He asked himself what event, issue, or heavy thought has recently taken place.  Chris realized just that morning he was on the phone with his mom, when he broke the news of his holiday European ski trip.  “She wasn’t excited,” he recalled, “The conversation went from light to heavy and I wasn’t sure why.”  Chris realized his mom would rather he spend time with her and the family, than go to skiing.  She was disappointed and now he felt it in his personal energy field as guilt.   Families are the best at getting into our personal space both physically and energetically.   We spend so much time with them, it’s easy to see how they can influence our field.

During BP’s oil spill, Denise couldn’t sleep and had trouble focusing.  “I just couldn’t stop thinking about all those sea mammals.  They must be miserable.” She wanted to take sabbatical from work to help with the clean-up efforts, but her finances wouldn’t allow for unpaid leave. The oil spill didn’t directly affect her, but she felt its reverberations.   Although the constant worry has lifted some, Denise still finds herself feeling depressed whenever she thinks about it.

Both Chris and Denise had energies pulsing through their personal fields that not only fueled their monkey minds, but also made them feel bad.  They identified where these foreign currents or ideas came from, but felt hopeless in their grasp.  What can we do when we see outside influences taking up space in our personal field?   Energy is mutable, it can easily change into something else or change to somewhere else.  Intention is the most efficient way to chase out those pests. Setting an intention, no matter how small, is making a declaration of freedom, of choice.  To set an intention for his ski trip, Chris thought, “I feel good about my vacation and will have fun.  I will call my family Christmas day to wish them well, then happily continue my ski trip.”  He held this belief firmly in his mind.  The next time he spoke to his mom, he acknowledged her sadness, then explained why this dream trip was so important to him.  He had no control over her response, but he did have a choice in how he responded to it.  Being a visual person, Denise tried a different tactic.  She saw the image of the BP oil spill in her mind, then imagined a huge sponge sweeping over the water to clean it up.  Many times a day she would imagine this scenario as she sent a kind thought to the sea life and people living in the gulf.  Soon, she felt lighter and less worried.  She didn’t have to leave her job or lose sleep.  She just had to set different intentions about the situation in other words choose different thoughts.

Our personal energy field is magnetic – we are magnets for all sorts of energy currents swirling around us.  As powerful magnets, we have a choice of what we attract and what we do not.  Putting our attention and awareness to thoughts, monkey mind, and worries help us identify what weighs us down.  Choosing differently through intention and imagination helps us clear our personal energy field so we may fill it with only beneficial ideas.

Taking Up Space Part 3: Distant Energy Field

Of your three energy fields, busiest by far is the remote or distant field.  It holds all the world’s activities and events, even those you’ve heard nothing about.   We all contribute a bit of ourselves to this distant field and vice versa.  The trick is to affect this remote field more than it affects you.

If you’re wondering how the remote field is influencing you, simply turn on the news.  What percent of the news is above the line and what percent is below the line?  You know the answer without even thinking.  Somehow, devastation, sorrow, scandal, and harm make the headlines at a much higher rate than celebrations, joyfulness, acts of kindness, and laughter.  In the distant field, it’s not so much what is going on in the world as much as how we react to it.   Events merely unravel, our collective emotional response to these events is what fills the planetary field.  What in the national or world news is utmost in your thoughts?  In which news item do you find yourself continually engaged conversationally?  Most importantly, how are your reactions or emotional responses?  It is the feeling surrounding the event that sticks to your personal field more than the actual event.

There are many ways to separate the distant energy field from your personal field.  Limiting the time you spend saturated in news is a great start.  Try taking a one-day news fast.  Substitute relaxing music in lieu of news as background noise.  Or if that’s not feasible, do one internet search for the day’s headlines, rather than having a news program on all day.  Also consider the wavelengths of information as it enters your ears.  Are you listening to sensationalized chatter of DJs with busy commercials in between?  Sound waves produced by sensationalism are choppy and unsettling.  Instead consider listening to commercial free radio with DJs who maintain more even, neutral vocal intonations.

Or even better, take a more proactive approach.  Since the more attention something is given, the larger it grows, give your attention to what you’d like in your personal field.   Gandhi said it best, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”  Let’s personalize his statement.  Every morning before you get out of bed, fill in the blank:  “Be The ________ You Wish To See In The World.”  What would you like your day filled with?   Contentment?  Gratitude? Happiness?  Abundance?  Fill in Gandhi’s statement.  “Be the Peace you wish to see in the world.”  You can make it even more personal by saying, “I am the Peace I wish to see in the world.”   Go back to Gandhi’s tailored statement a few times throughout the day knowing your personal field is being affected as well as the remote field.

Taking Up Space Part 2: Near Energy Field

“My mom really wanted me to be a nurse,” Holly recalls, “but it just didn’t interest me.”   Holly’s experience demonstrates how near energy fields function.  “It felt like a struggle.  Mom was insistent and felt the medical field was best.  My whole senior year became a balancing act between subduing my mom, while figuring out what I really wanted to do.”

The near energy field, containing family, community, work, and friends, entwines so comfortably with our personal field that it may be hard to decipher our own ideas from those close to us. We can easily adopt, accept, and embrace near energy field ideas as if they were our own, ignoring the lack of passion in our heart.  Holly was fortunate.  Being able to recognize her lights-off attitude towards nursing, while realizing her mother in her near field, Holly maneuvered through her senior year and into college certain nursing wasn’t for her.  During her sophomore year at university, Holly’s mother eventually relented and supported her decision to major in marketing.   But only after Holly fell in love with the career and explained how enlivened she felt in her classes.

Holly’s predicament is not unfamiliar. Holly teetered between holding her personal energy field while her near energy field encroached.  Keeping the two separate through awareness and self-assurance allows us to more confidently follow our own journey.

We know on an intellectual level that as humans, we are guaranteed free will.  However, anyone who has ever owned a family, knows this reality can sometimes blur into an ideal.  With well meaning intentions and nothing but love and support for our successful lives, people closest to us truly believe their ideas of how to live are safest and therefore best.  It’s what they see as true in their own personal energy fields.  However, standing firm in our certainty with keen awareness to our own personal fields, we can gently influence our near field to five us support.

Taking Up Space Part 1: Personal Energy Field

It may not feel like it sometimes, but you have total control over your personal energy field.  Outside energies constantly poke and prod trying to sell you their ideas, but ultimately with some awareness, you are the master controller of your energy field. Your personal current of energy extends three feet around your body and houses energy, ideas, about your body, mind, emotions, and spirit.  These ideas become bigger every time you think and act on their behalf.  So how can we easily maintain our energy field where we want it without being dragged down by these outside influences?

Concentrate on what you love.  Love subdues any fear that might want to flow through your personal field.  Focus and set the intention to feel good.  Remain above the line in both your thoughts and behavior.

Surround yourself with ease.  Put on classical music or any music that makes you feel calm and peaceful.  Draw yourself a bubble bath.  Go to the spa.  Meet a friend for tea.  Your personal field will grow stronger and belong solely to you.  Surround yourself with the peace and ease you wish to feel inside.

Imagination.  Use your imagination to chase away energies in your field that do not serve your goals and good intentions.  Remember that angry driver who cut you off in traffic?  Imagine a tow truck hooking him up and pulling him out of your mind and therefore, your personal field.  Is your Monkey Mind going haywire?  Put a leash around his collar and escort him out.   Maybe two or more tow trucks are necessary, even a dozen leashes, but the point is, you’re in control.  If something doesn’t fit, tell it to leave.

Choice Point

Every day, all day we line up the options then choose.  Fried, poached, scrambled, or hard boiled egg?  Wheat, rye, sourdough, or white bread for toast?  Coffee, juice, sparkling water, or mimosa to wash it all down?  Writing out the breakfast choices makes the process seem much more complicated than it really is.  Most decisions we make come lickety-split without much thought.   Preferences stored in our memory and based on experience make the selection method seem intuitive.  Why then does this intuitive talent go by the wayside when choice points are big – big enough to alter our life and the way we do business?  How do we harness this natural intuition during points in our lives when choices seem all encompassing?

Jaimie knew she was at the prime of her career.  She had five good years of experience under her belt and felt confident.  She knew she could take on any challenge, but grew bored with her current job.  These indicators led her easily into choice point number one; stay where she was or look for other jobs with new opportunities.  With nothing to lose Jaimie didn’t over think her situation.  She got busy sending out resumes and filling her calendar with interview appointments.  Choice point number two would not come so easily.  Jaimie narrowed her selection down to two companies both of whom extended offers; Sloan’s and Porter.    While visiting Porter, Jaimie’s analytical mind danced with joy.  All of her “perfect job” criteria were met at Porter including salary, private office, short commute, and quiet location.  At Sloan’s Jaimie found herself disappointed in the salary offered, office space, and longer commute.    From a purely analytical choice point, Porter was the winner.  Yet Jaimie felt compelled by Sloan’s offer.  She went over and over the options in her head and kept coming back to Sloan’s.  Why?  It felt right.  The building overlooked a beautiful lake, her would-be coworkers smiled and laughed more during the interview, and she felt good when she was at Sloan’s.  Porter felt wrong to her.  The building offered little in the way of atmosphere, employees were all business showing little capacity for amusement, and she felt stifled as she walked through the building.  She couldn’t rationalize why, she just knew how she felt.

Jaimie’s choice point came down to above the line feelings and below the line feelings.  Sloan’s welcoming atmosphere made Jaimie naturally gravitate towards above the line thoughts of openness, generosity, and collegiality.  At Porter she found herself feeling competitive and nervous.  She was already deciding which coworkers she would not be able to trust.  Jaimie could follow her intuitive, sixth chakra, feeling side or go with her analytical, first chakra, survival side.  She chose feeling good.  Once there, Sloan’s treated her well and gave her even more experience from which to launch her own business.  When leaving years later, she stayed in touch with many of her former coworkers and recalls her days with Sloan’s fondly.

It’s easy to make breakfast decisions knowing sourdough bread and hard boiled eggs don’t agree with your palette as well as rye bread and poached eggs.  Intuitively, we don’t even have to think about some choices, we know the answer.  Intuition shows up in how we feel at a gut level.   Above the line thinking falls into place with our intuition.  In fact, our intuition thrives and grows the more we find ourselves acting in accordance with above the line.  Choice points can be challenging to navigate.  Check in with your feelings and your intuition will lead you to the right choice at the right moment.

Dubious Doubt

Along the pathway of living a passionate, lights on existence, doubt may flicker.   It may show up as doubt in oneself, “I don’t think I have the talent to market this business.”   It may project onto clients, “Nobody will want the type of consulting help I offer.”  Doubt may even cause you to reevaluate your passion, “Why in the world did I start this online retail store?”   Doubt is a natural and expected aspect to following your dream.  Luckily, doubt is also easy to navigate through.

Information gives us supports when facing the effects of doubt.  Gathering solid, researched information will cut off the lifeline doubt uses to reach you.  Ask yourself seven questions about your passion and vision.  These questions help you find and ground your vision.  You’ve given so much thought, time, and energy to living your dream, these answers will come easily while giving you peace of mind.  Refocus on your dream and vision.  Then, give thanks to doubt.  Doubt provides a means to solidify your original vision, a way to revisit and renew your vows to yourself and your dream.

Embrace the Eddy

An eddy is a circular movement in water that causes a whirlpool, a swirling effect that impedes movement forward. We often experience eddies as we navigate through the journey that is our lives.  Remember that the energy in an eddy will feel familiar as we repeat patterns and lessons not yet learned. Learning to navigate eddies will help you along your journey as you change and adjust course. Each eddy that appears is a lesson to be learned, so embrace them with gratitude and a new perspective.

1. Lessons are learned through repeated patterns. When an eddy appears, the opportunity to learn the lesson also appears. Through simple awareness of the pattern, you will have a new opportunity to examine and learn in a new way.
2. Practice gratitude when an eddy appears. If you are in an eddy, you have not yet learned the lesson that it is trying to teach. Be grateful because this time through the eddy may be the last time you will need to learn this lesson. You now can recognize the pattern, stop the pattern and increase your momentum forward.
3. As you begin to kick out of the eddy, you will be stronger and wiser for your experience. You will have learned to hold your vision even in the face of adversity.
4. As you release the patterns that have held you within the eddy, you will find the patterns are no longer of service to you. Recognizing the pattern (discovery) and then shifting your attention (recovery) to your true path will give you freedom to follow your vision.

Personal Seasons

As spring peaks out from its slumber, many parts of the United States are feeling it.   Parks see more activity and bike trails fill with runners, walkers, and bikers.  The spring season tickles our lighter sense of living and engages us to play.  How fascinating the way our emotions intertwine with seasonal changes.  Summer has the ability to conjure up full-on joy; autumn can bring us to warm depths in our heart, while simultaneously stirring up a tinge of cold, winter’s capable of showing us soul searching depths, while we become less active and more homebound.

Individual experiences with these weather patterns vary, but in general, people have a strong idea of how they feel during any given season.  There are only four seasons per year, yet we humans run the gamut of emotional charges day by day.  Have you noticed your own personal cycle of seasons as you live through your day?   Unlike the seasons brought on by earth’s tilt and location in orbit, our personal seasons can be managed.  Using archetypal emotions in each season, let’s look at what we can learn about ourselves during emotional flare-ups and how we can move through the colder moments.

Winter The use of a shovel during those cold, dark, snowy winter months is quite metaphorical.  Winter can plunge us into depths we’d rather not voyage.  The cold can truly chill the bone leaving behind a feeling of loneliness, fear, and yearning.  Winter is adept at bringing out our shadow.  Shadow behavior is good friends with those winter blues.  Just like shoveling snow out of the way, use an above-the-line shovel to find your way back.  Whenever winter emotions pull you under, grab a shovel and pave your way back to the lighter, more positive aspects of living.  Snow tends to fall repeatedly throughout the winter months and the need to shovel can happen many times a day, many days in a row. Above the line thinking is close and gets closer every time you shovel.  Forgive yourself, refocus, and keep shoveling!

Spring Spring cleaning comes to mind.  Those winter emotions have built up a residue.  You’ve shoveled out the loose ends, now it’s time to scrub it until it shines!  Spring emotions offer us the opportunity to take inventory and clean out the unnecessary.  What emotional baggage are you ready to let go of?  Say good-bye to it for good.  Shedding the unwanted is a great way to loosen shadow behavior.

Summer That shiny, bright sun always knows how to lighten the load.  It encourages growth, brings depth to our skin tone, and clears the way for summer fun.  Feeling good just makes sense.  It’s contagious and sparks our creative endeavors.  Summertime emotions are a call to action.   Move around and soak it up.  Remember though, too much sun can burn.  It’s good to step inside now and then. Taking a break gives your skin respite and helps rebuild your energy level. Let those high, excited emotions run their course, be thankful for them, but always come back to center.

Autumn During autumn we look at the chill coming our way, while remaining hopeful.  Autumn offers a nice balance to our emotional playground.  School kicks in and even if we’re not following the school calendar, our bodies know it’s time to settle down.  There is a magical balance between calm and playfulness to which the fall season lends itself.  As the abundant harvest comes in, reflect on all that is good.  Being grateful and giving thanks amplifies your manifestation abilities.

Wherever you are playing in the emotional landscape of life, stay curious and forgive yourself.  If it feels as if you’re tilted and flying through orbit, then you’re going the right way!