January 4, 2008

Six Habits to Transform Your Year

A clean slate once again! What a perfect time to put the past behind us and embrace our full potential as creative directors of our lives.

To help create a year you'll love, consider the following tips and techniques to transform your 2008. Choose one you haven't mastered yet and enjoy!

1. Breathe
Letting oxygen in to fill the lungs is not only good for physical health, but for your emotional and spiritual health as well. We feel better and think better when our cells are fully oxygenated. Some say it's because oxygen strengthens our connection to source energy.

Next time you don't know what to do or feel overwhelmed with challenging emotions, take a couple of deep breaths and let the peace (and solutions) in, while releasing the stress. Oxygen is both invigorating and cleansing.

2. Feel
Since our feelings dictate what we attract, it's important to be aware of and manage them. Many of us have learned to ignore or deny our feelings for various reasons. Being disconnected to our feelings is to be disconnected to our creative power. Ancient spiritual traditions, as well as leading edge science, tells us our feelings dictate what manifests in our lives. Getting clear on what we're feeling and learning to choose them deliberately allows us to be deliberate manifestors.

Learn to let yourself feel your feelings. Notice where in your body the feeling sensations reside. Imagine going to the core of the essence of that energy - the very center of it - and then just be present to it. Sit with it and let yourself feel what's there until it dissipates.
This simple but profound practice frees us from negative behaviors many engage in (overeating, overworking, and other addictive behaviors) to keep from feeling.

3. Be Still
Embrace the habit of slowing down. Becoming present to the current moment creates space for magic to happen. When our lives are crammed full of "reality" and our knee jerk reactions to it, we have neither the discipline nor the capability of directing our attention where it best serves us.

Beginning a meditation practice can be as easy as Elizabeth Gilbert's (author of "Eat, Pray, Love") mentor taught her: simply sit and smile for a few minutes each day. You'll notice a difference when you do.

There are a variety of ways to explore internal peace and quiet. However you approach the practice, the journey is well rewarded.

4. Focus
Want to really blow the socks off your new year? Cultivate a focus on what's working in your life and what's truly important to you. Get used to looking at what's going your way, things to appreciate, and reasons to be thankful. Since we get what we think about, as we direct our attention on what we want and enjoy (instead of worrying about what we don't want or what went wrong before), we allow our deepest desires to manifest.

Although it takes a little practice, the energy invested in this pursuit pays off handsomely. In the very least, as Meister Eckhart said, "If the only prayer you said in your whole life was 'thank you,' that would suffice."

5. Let Go
There comes a time we're called to release old patterns, friendships, lifestyles, thoughts, etc. When that time comes, honor it. New things and experiences can't enter our lives while we've got a death grip on the old. Learn to trust your intuition and doubt your fear, and let go of what no longer serves you.

Also, one of the most powerful ways to transform your year is to release your attachment to outcome. What we really want isn't so much a particular outcome anyway. Rather, what we really want is how we think that outcome will make us feel. You can, in fact, choose that feeling now, before anything else happens.

6. Have Fun
We Americans are particularly driven by ambition and the push to succeed, often at the expense of enjoying the journey. Let's not forget the bigger picture. Suffering doesn't serve anyone.

Sometimes we think it's wrong to enjoy life when so many others aren't, or when there is so much work to correct our "faltering" world. The truth is that suffering doesn't serve anyone - not you, not others, and certainly not the cause we feel so passionate about. We're offering our best service when we feel good.

Know that when you "push against" something, you strengthen it. That in itself is reason enough to relinquish suffering. There's nothing to prove and no hoops to jump through in order to be worthy of reward. So relax and relish!

Finally, you know more than you think you do. Remember to trust yourself and lighten up to savor the journey. Enjoy your new year as if it were impossible to go wrong, because indeed, it is. Happy 2008!

10 comments:

  1. This is fabulous I just graced the topic heading and subheadings and I'm looking forward to reading! Happy No Matter What! is my mantra

    Patricia Dolan

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  2. #2 freaks out a lot of people, and I think it's for 3 different reasons, any of which I can understand:

    1. It sounds like it might lead to wallowing in a feeling, which expands it, rather than working through it, which lets it ventilate and clear. The fear is that letting a little will lead to too much. It's so easy to give in to sadness once begun, and it overwhelms you. You can find serious examples of this sort of person at M.A.D.D. and supporting over-reaching "for the children" laws.

    2. It actually does, in many cases, lead to excess, which doesn't freak out the person until they find things spinning out of control and their manifesting plans gone awry. The excess comes from throwing oneself into a feeling rather than thoughtfully exploring it. An easy example of this person can be found claiming their kid is "just big-boned."

    3. A student of LOA knows that feelings create and is therefore hesitant to give scope to negative feeling. Even knowing that releasing it is imperative doesn't shake the fear that in acknowledging a bad feeling one is promulgating it and its effects. The new or somewhat misguided student is very likely to run into this.

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  3. I can appreciate your mantra, Patricia! I bet you'll have fun with that one this year!

    Thanks for reading and for posting!

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  4. Your reason #3 I see a LOT, John!! People who are new to LOA sometimes develop a fear of negative feelings, and become even more determined than before to avoid them at all costs.

    And we know how that works, right? What we resist, persists.

    The thing is our body knows these negative feelings don't belong in it. It wants them purged. It can't be completely healthy while we're burying these negative emotions in its dark corners.

    Which is why many people hesitate to practice habit #3, being still. When we get quiet, the body jumps at the chance to unload this crap we've been burying all those years. And that's uncomfortable for many people to starting feeling what they've been so good at avoiding for so long.

    This has much to do with the development of our spindle cells while we're young. It's easy for us to be overwhelmed as youngsters because they're not fully formed, so we learn to avoid emotional overwhelment by avoiding feeling. But when we grow up and now have fully developed brains for handling feelings, we don't necessarily change our habits, and we continue to process of avoiding feeling.

    And our bodies (not to mention our vibrations) are stuck with all this negative emotion that we won't acknowledge.

    Once again our animal friends are excellent models for how to handle this stuff. Deal with it as it comes up. When it's over, shake it off, let it go and move onward. Healthy body, healthy vibe.

    It's an important topic. Thanks for letting me vent about it for a minute. :)

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  5. (once more, with coherency!)

    Vent away! In fact, explore the topic into a full post/newsletter/whatever! Venting means you're just blowing off the extra pressure, and there's bound to be a good essay beneath it. As you say, it's an important topic that is badly misunderstood.

    As for myself, I was rather frustrated at the very beginning with injunctions to not even recognize negative feelings. Lots of "oh, come on" moments. What you said in the Feel topic is actually more a relief to me than anything (since I was headed straight for mistake #3).

    It's amazing how this overlaps with the discomfort people feel in silence, when everything they've tamped down in their brains - good, bad, ideas, dreams, everything - comes flooding out, looking for attention.

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  6. Jeannette, I've enjoyed reading your blog since I discovered it. You've helped me develop a better understanding of LOA.

    And these techniques are both simple and profound--simple actions that lead to profound changes.

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  7. It's true isn't it - we know more than we give ourselves credit for and sometimes we are looking for the feel goods in all the wrong places.
    But being real with what is up for ourselves that's when we are cooking and when we can create change for ourselves. WE have to own up to our creations in the first place.
    I love the first point the best - just breathe, a balatant reminder support is always a heartbeat away. And a brilliant reminder to cleanse and not take yourself so seriously. My favourite moment of truth is when I start to giggle.

    Love Leslie

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  8. Once again, John, you make a good point. I'm glad you found the "feeling" tip to be a relief! And that silence - you know, that's a coach's favorite friend, because when we're silent for long enough, something important invariably comes up.

    Kirsten, thanks for pitching in! I'm glad this info comes across as simple, and that you can see the profound changes possible when implemented. Sometimes we have a tendency to think it's hard or to try to make it hard, huh? I know I do.

    Just like Leslie reiterated, it can be as simple as remembering to breathe! (And Leslie, I love the thought of your giggle moments!!)

    Thanks for posting, everyone! It's so fun interacting with you on the topics I'm passionate about!

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