Pick Yourself Up, Dust Yourself Off, Start All Over Again

Nothing's impossible, I have found
For when my chin is on the ground.
I pick myself up,
Dust myself off
And start all over again.

Don't lose your confidence
If you slip
Be grateful for a pleasant trip
And pick yourself up,
Dust yourself off
And start all over again.

By Jerome Kern and Dorothy Fields, ©1936

I'm a big fan of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movie musicals—I'm pretty certain that I've watched all of them, multiple times since childhood. I could easily and quite happily spend hours watching a marathon of their musicals. Watching Fred and Ginger movies with my mom and older sister, along with seeing Mikhail Baryshnikov in the Nutcracker, is what ignited my love of dance. Often after watching their movies as a child, I would retreat to the basement of our home and try to mimic their routines. In fact, several years later after I began taking ballroom lessons (another story for another time), I had someone design/make a gown for me to look like my absolute favorite Ginger Rogers' gown, which she wore in Follow the Fleet.

It's no wonder then that today when I was feeling a bit discouraged about recent events in my life and that of my family that the song "Pick Yourself Up," which Rogers sings in Swing Time to an awkward dancing Astaire, should suddenly pop into my head. I had only moments earlier been practicing a dance variation in between care giving duties for my parents. Curiously, it was during my quiet time while I was reading about Neville Goddard's method for "revising" unpleasant or negative events to help pick up my mood when I heard the song. The song along with Neville's revision method, which he taught as a way to help prevent negative patterns from repeating in your life by changing the way you perceive events, did a lot to help me pick myself up from what could have been an all-day funk.

Believing as I do that our thoughts, emotions, and words have creative power, I certainly don't want to spend an entire day in a funk and risk repeating more of the same experiences that I'm not enjoying. I appreciated and needed the reminder that I have the power within myself to choose my thoughts, feelings, and focus in the moment to create better experiences and outcomes for myself going forward.

I've been learning to do this when practicing my dancing. Even the best dancers occasionally stumble or misstep. I've been trained that when I do stumble or misstep (or God forbid, fall), sometimes the very best thing to do is keep dancing through to the end of the variation or routine. My instructor and I will, of course, pause afterward to assess what happened—did I lose my frame, were my feet or hands not in the right position, did I lose my focus. We will then make the necessary corrections and start all over again. However, I've learned that if I remain fixated on the problem or whatever it was that caused the mistake, I'll keep repeating it—usually to the frustration of my instructor. The key to success in my starting over is to focus on dancing the variation correctly, actually seeing and feeling myself dancing correctly over and over again in my mind until suddenly (sometimes to my surprise), I discover I'm actually doing it.

And so it is, I'm learning, in life. In the face of challenges, obstacles, setbacks, and disappointments that knock you on your butt, you can choose to let fear, frustration, and misplaced focus keep your butt on the ground and your goals and heart's desires out of reach, or you can pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again.

Did you know?
Fred Astaire, considered an icon of old Hollywood Glamour and whose name is practically synonymous with dance, failed early in his career to attract any interest in Hollywood. Regarding his initial screen test, at least one studio executive wrote, "Can't sing. Can't act. Slightly balding. Can dance a little." (Source: Biography.com)

How Neville Goddard Changed My Life

Let me begin my stating that I was going to call this post " An Ode to Neville Goddard," but that would have required me to actually write a poem, which I’m not in the mood to do. I did feel inspired today to pay tribute to this great teacher whom I’ve never met, yet consider a mentor—a very beloved mentor.

I discovered Neville Goddard’s teachings about four years ago while reading Wayne Dyer’s book, Wishes Fulfilled. Dyer makes several references to Neville Goddard and how his teachings helped to inform his philosophy of life. Intrigued by some of the quotes included in the book, I decided to learn more about Mr. Goddard and his teachings.

It didn't take very long as there was plenty of information readily available all over the Internet. He taught over 475 lectures and published 10 books beginning around the 1950s until his death in 1972. There are numerous websites devoted to sharing his teachings that were created by people who are/were influenced by him. He is in fact considered by many to be among the greatest New Thought leaders of his day, and even now.

Neville Goddard’s teachings have certainly for over four years informed my own transformation and my views about life and what is possible for me. Through his vast lectures, many of which can be heard on YouTube, I’ve come to understand a great deal about the powerful role my thoughts, imagination, and feelings have in shaping my circumstances. I have as a result learned to pay more attention to the thoughts I’m thinking, what I am feeling and what I am imagining at any given moment.

His teachings have helped me to create some pretty amazing experiences by shifting my thoughts, feelings and emotions away from what I’m not enjoying to what I would prefer. They have also helped me to release years of buried guilt and shame—emotions that will absolutely prevent you from living your best life. For better or worse, our thoughts create our feelings and beliefs, which determine our choices, which determine our actions, which determine our experiences. As Neville would put it: “Nothing comes from without; all things come from within.”

Among my favorite Neville quotes are the following:

“Man, if he is in control of his own imagination, is in control of the phenomena of his life. He is not the victim of circumstances; circumstances are the creatures of himself.”

"Do not compromise. Decide exactly what you want and assume you have it. If your world would change, determine what it would look like; then construct a scene which would imply you are there."

“Disregard appearances, conditions, in fact disregard all evidence of your senses that deny the fulfillment of your desire. Rest in the assumption that you already are what you want to be. For in that determined assumption, you and your infinite being are merged in creative unity. And with your infinite being (God) all things are possible.”

The last one, which Wayne Dyer quotes specifically in Wishes Fulfilled, is one that I meditate on day and night and especially in those moments where I began to feel like life’s victim. It isn’t as some might conclude an invitation to ignore what is happening around me, like an ostrich with her head in the sand. It is an invitation to remain focused on my desired destination or outcome in spite of what I am seeing or experiencing. My current circumstances, problems, challenges may be real now, but reality isn’t static—it is constantly changing. Focusing on the problem only serves to keep me stuck in the problem, exactly where I don’t want to be. Maintaining laser-like focus on my aim will move me towards it.

I’ve read nearly all of Neville’s lectures, many of which you can access for free at realneville.com. (The PDFs only; the audios you'll need to buy.) In addition, I’ve purchased several of his books. Among them: Feeling is the Secret, Your Faith is Your Fortune, Power of Awareness, Awakened Imagination, Prayer: The Art of Believing, and At Your Command.

I recommend all of them with the caveat that you will 1) need to read through them multiple times to grasp the meaning of what he’s saying, yet it’s worth it, and 2) need to keep an open mind. If you think your way, or your parents’ way, or your pastor’s way of understanding scripture or the Bible is the only way it can be understood, or perhaps you aren’t Christian and not open to discussions of scripture, your mind will simply not allow you to glean from Neville’s work the valuable insight that he offers. It is my personal belief that his teachings can benefit anyone, regardless of religious affiliation or even if you don’t adhere to any.

Neville’s teachings offer the opportunity to stop playing victim and take responsibility for your life. If your life is a hot mess and you accept that you’re the one who created the mess, then that means you also have power to create something better and it doesn’t matter how the economy is doing, who gets elected president, or whether your boss is a jerk. Your “savior,” Neville would suggest, is within, not without. What could be more empowering than that?

Below are a couple of my favorite Neville Goddard videos. I sometimes listen to these as I’m going to sleep.

 Facts Have Over Flowed the World

 How Abdullah Taught the Law

Neville discusses what he learned from his mentor Abdullah, an Ethiopian Jew, about the power of imagination.