Tuesday, March 13, 2018
Monday, February 12, 2018
That was Then; This is Now!
I awoke this morning with a curious thought that perhaps it’s time, well past time, that I stop trying to “fix” me. Funnily, I am finding that so much of self-help work is not all that helpful. Particularly unhelpful to me are the programs or systems that have you continually and continually peeling back layers and layers and layers and more layers of "hidden issues" or "blocks to your good"—trauma, pain, suffering, hurts from childhood, early adulthood or even past lives; negative beliefs; limiting beliefs; agendas, and on and on—before you can even begin to hope to reach the point of actually focusing on living the life you desire and dream about. I mean, the more I peel away the layers, the more I find that needs healing or clearing or purging. Aargh!!! Enough already!
I have decided to take to heart the Apostle Paul’s suggestion and forget all that and simply accept my new creationhood. Forget all the stuff that is behind me and focus on what’s ahead—that which I desire and am choosing to experience in this present moment of now.
Olympic athletes provide the perfect example of this, most specifically those who run track or swim.. After all, has there ever at any time in the history of the Olympics been a gold medal swimmer or runner who’s won a race looking backwards? And I don't just mean looking behind to see how far in front of the other runners or swimmers or what distance they've already run or swam, but looking back to previous losses or even wins.Typically, when interviewed these athletes will share how no matter what they kept their focus fixed on that race and the finish line ahead of them. Why is it then, I suppose, that we expect to be successful in any area of life looking at, in sometimes great detail, what is behind us rather than ahead?
I had to ask myself this morning: Is digging up every past trauma, failure, shortcoming and the associated emotions really healing? And is sharing every trauma, failure, shortcoming, fear, or anxiety from my past with anyone and everyone who will listen beneficial to them? Is this how truly successful people succeed? Or, could it be that the truly successful are those who do as Paul suggests, shake off the past like it never happened and set their eyes like a flint on their goal?
Will former pains, hurts, traumas, failures, childhood programming, etc., still come up for me from time to time? Perhaps, yes. But I have already prepared the appropriate response: That was then; this is now.
"Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead," Phil 3:13 (New Living Translation)
"Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." 2 Cor. 5:17
I have decided to take to heart the Apostle Paul’s suggestion and forget all that and simply accept my new creationhood. Forget all the stuff that is behind me and focus on what’s ahead—that which I desire and am choosing to experience in this present moment of now.
Olympic athletes provide the perfect example of this, most specifically those who run track or swim.. After all, has there ever at any time in the history of the Olympics been a gold medal swimmer or runner who’s won a race looking backwards? And I don't just mean looking behind to see how far in front of the other runners or swimmers or what distance they've already run or swam, but looking back to previous losses or even wins.Typically, when interviewed these athletes will share how no matter what they kept their focus fixed on that race and the finish line ahead of them. Why is it then, I suppose, that we expect to be successful in any area of life looking at, in sometimes great detail, what is behind us rather than ahead?
I had to ask myself this morning: Is digging up every past trauma, failure, shortcoming and the associated emotions really healing? And is sharing every trauma, failure, shortcoming, fear, or anxiety from my past with anyone and everyone who will listen beneficial to them? Is this how truly successful people succeed? Or, could it be that the truly successful are those who do as Paul suggests, shake off the past like it never happened and set their eyes like a flint on their goal?
Will former pains, hurts, traumas, failures, childhood programming, etc., still come up for me from time to time? Perhaps, yes. But I have already prepared the appropriate response: That was then; this is now.
"Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead," Phil 3:13 (New Living Translation)
"Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." 2 Cor. 5:17
Wednesday, January 24, 2018
Let It Pass
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| The Thinker - Sculpture by Auguste Rodin (courtesy of nga.gov) |
According to neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor, an unresisted thought passes through the brain in 90 seconds. If you don't like a thought that pops into your brain at any given moment, rather than dwell on it, just let it pass.
Or, in the words of the late Rev. Ike, you can simply: “Tell your mind what to think.”
Tuesday, January 9, 2018
Bending Me
“What is real? How do you define real? If you're talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then real is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.” Morpheus to Neo in the Matrix movie
Life as simulation? Feels real enough when you are caught up in the emotions and sensual stimuli you perceive all around you. The voices you hear. The things you smell, touch, taste.
Curiously, so it is in my dreams. Yet, I rarely fully buy into the events, objects, and people I encounter in them as being real, or do I?
In the moments that I’m “dreaming,” it is, it feels real. Scarily so sometimes. When I am under threat in my dreams, physically or emotionally, I react the same as when I'm awake. My body though lying still on the bed reacts. My heart rate increases, my muscles tense, my breathing becomes labored. Heck, sometimes I even sweat. Just last week, in the moments immediately after awaking from sleep, I could still feel as real and solid in my hand the object I had been holding onto during the dream. When I fully opened my eyes, I was surprised and confused to find nothing in my hand.
Now, I’m awake, but am I really? How do I know?
And if my mind is merely interpreting information "out there" and creating within it a picture that I perceive as being an external world, what's to stop it, or me as awakened consciousness, from creating or choosing what data/information I desire to perceive?
If I could allow myself even for a brief moment to completely suspend disbelief, what would I be capable of experiencing in this moment now? And in the next one? And the next one? What wonders might await me?
What wonders might await you?
Life as simulation? Feels real enough when you are caught up in the emotions and sensual stimuli you perceive all around you. The voices you hear. The things you smell, touch, taste.
Curiously, so it is in my dreams. Yet, I rarely fully buy into the events, objects, and people I encounter in them as being real, or do I?
In the moments that I’m “dreaming,” it is, it feels real. Scarily so sometimes. When I am under threat in my dreams, physically or emotionally, I react the same as when I'm awake. My body though lying still on the bed reacts. My heart rate increases, my muscles tense, my breathing becomes labored. Heck, sometimes I even sweat. Just last week, in the moments immediately after awaking from sleep, I could still feel as real and solid in my hand the object I had been holding onto during the dream. When I fully opened my eyes, I was surprised and confused to find nothing in my hand.
Now, I’m awake, but am I really? How do I know?
“Do not try to bend the spoon, that's impossible. Instead only try to realize the truth. Then you'll see, it is not the spoons that bends it is only yourself.” From the Matrix movieThere are those within spiritual circles and even some scientists, such as Nick Bostrom and Dean Radin, who suggest all that we behold is merely information our brains are processing. But where is the information coming from? Who or what is responsible for creating the information, the data that I behold or think myself to be beholding or experiencing?
And if my mind is merely interpreting information "out there" and creating within it a picture that I perceive as being an external world, what's to stop it, or me as awakened consciousness, from creating or choosing what data/information I desire to perceive?
If I could allow myself even for a brief moment to completely suspend disbelief, what would I be capable of experiencing in this moment now? And in the next one? And the next one? What wonders might await me?
What wonders might await you?
Wednesday, January 3, 2018
Pay Attention
"You cannot serve two masters. In any moment you are either moving TOWARDS or AWAY from the things you desire based on what you focus your attention on most of the time." – Dr. Robert Anthony
Some years ago I contemplated writing a blog, Musings of a Scattered Mind. At the time I felt and often still feel as if my mind is scattered about in a thousand different places at once—bouncing around from one thought or idea to the next one to the next one and back again. When I was very young, my parents and older siblings were constantly chiding me "Donna, be still, pay attention!"
As I grew older, I assumed it was just my nature to be unfocused, easily distracted and scattered in thought. Concentrating on a single thing at a time seemed hard work for me, if not impossible.That's the story I told myself. I'm realizing now it doesn't have to be my truth and, in fact, wasn't ever really.
Having invested several years now in studying the teachings of metaphysical and spiritual teachers like Neville Goddard and Joseph Murphy and having gained a better understanding of the importance of developing focus, particularly on your aims, it's clear to me why I’ve often felt throughout much of my life that I’ve been bouncing all over the place. I have been—my life, my actions, my behavior have been following the bouncing balls that are my scattered thoughts, the ones I manage to hold fast to, and so many of them contradictory.
It's rather like dancing. In whatever direction I focus my attention (not my eyes, there's a subtlety of dance that requires you focus your attention independent of your physical vision), that’s the direction in which my body moves. If for even one half-second I lose focus on where it is I’m going or desiring to go, I will begin almost immediately moving in another direction entirely causing me to misstep or lose my footing completely and step or fall into my dance partner. Not fun for either one of us (not usually, LOL!).
To be fair to myself, my thoughts aren’t always scattered. There have been, and are, times when I’m able to maintain laser-like focus on a single thing—project, idea, aim—for an extended period without being diverted. There have been moments when I've set out to accomplish something and I'm like a pit bull with a bone. What I’ve noticed is that it is usually those times when I am my most successful and able to achieve precisely what I’ve set out to.
Just this past summer, I lost 20 lbs in just over two months because I was doggedly determined to do so. No matter what the scale read or what I perceived I saw in the mirror, I refused to entertain any thoughts other than "I easily and effortlessly maintain my ideal body weight."
Also to be fair to myself, I know that I’m not alone in entertaining a myriad of scattered thoughts. These days, the ability to multi-task is a highly praised skill. It shouldn’t be.
I used to brag about my multi-tasking prowess as it seemed I was able to accomplish quite a lot of different things at once. The belief being that I was getting more done in less time. However, the question remains: “how well was I, are you, accomplishing these tasks?” Is the end result of the same quality as it might be if we simply focused completing one thing before moving on to the next?
And what of scattered thoughts? Why does it make sense to us that we can scatter our thoughts and energy across even opposing ends and still achieve our desires?
I want to be slim and healthy, yet my mind bounces from being healthy and slim to being out-of-shape and unhealthy. (Exactly what I was doing before I decided to focus solely on slim and healthy, and then lost 20 lbs). I want to live an abundant, opulent life, yet my thoughts bounce from being abundant to "I can't afford" and “why is everything so expensive” and back again.
Other writers on the subject of mind and thoughts have suggested that we have somewhere between 30,000 to 60,000 thoughts a day, most of them random, covering not just recent events, fears, anxieties, joys, or pleasures, but events and non-events throughout the entirety of our lives. Ever have a moment when out of the nowhere you had thought of a song you hadn’t heard since you were five? Ever ask yourself "why"?
While I certainly don’t expect, nor would I attempt, to control 30,000-plus thoughts passing through my mind, I can absolutely choose the ones on which to fix my attention. I can certainly choose to maintain laser-like focus on what I am wanting and disregard anything that doesn't align with that.
Scattered thoughts and attention equal a scattered life, which is why I’m willing to accept as my truth Dr. Robert’s quote about serving to masters that I included at the beginning of this post. Jesus said it this way:
“No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other.”
Which ever thoughts you choose to give your constant attention are the ones that you love and the ones that you will serve. Choose wisely.
As for me, I’m reigning in my scattered mind and expecting my external world to follow suit as I give primary attention to my dreams and aims.
Some years ago I contemplated writing a blog, Musings of a Scattered Mind. At the time I felt and often still feel as if my mind is scattered about in a thousand different places at once—bouncing around from one thought or idea to the next one to the next one and back again. When I was very young, my parents and older siblings were constantly chiding me "Donna, be still, pay attention!"
As I grew older, I assumed it was just my nature to be unfocused, easily distracted and scattered in thought. Concentrating on a single thing at a time seemed hard work for me, if not impossible.That's the story I told myself. I'm realizing now it doesn't have to be my truth and, in fact, wasn't ever really.
Having invested several years now in studying the teachings of metaphysical and spiritual teachers like Neville Goddard and Joseph Murphy and having gained a better understanding of the importance of developing focus, particularly on your aims, it's clear to me why I’ve often felt throughout much of my life that I’ve been bouncing all over the place. I have been—my life, my actions, my behavior have been following the bouncing balls that are my scattered thoughts, the ones I manage to hold fast to, and so many of them contradictory.
It's rather like dancing. In whatever direction I focus my attention (not my eyes, there's a subtlety of dance that requires you focus your attention independent of your physical vision), that’s the direction in which my body moves. If for even one half-second I lose focus on where it is I’m going or desiring to go, I will begin almost immediately moving in another direction entirely causing me to misstep or lose my footing completely and step or fall into my dance partner. Not fun for either one of us (not usually, LOL!).
To be fair to myself, my thoughts aren’t always scattered. There have been, and are, times when I’m able to maintain laser-like focus on a single thing—project, idea, aim—for an extended period without being diverted. There have been moments when I've set out to accomplish something and I'm like a pit bull with a bone. What I’ve noticed is that it is usually those times when I am my most successful and able to achieve precisely what I’ve set out to.
Just this past summer, I lost 20 lbs in just over two months because I was doggedly determined to do so. No matter what the scale read or what I perceived I saw in the mirror, I refused to entertain any thoughts other than "I easily and effortlessly maintain my ideal body weight."
Also to be fair to myself, I know that I’m not alone in entertaining a myriad of scattered thoughts. These days, the ability to multi-task is a highly praised skill. It shouldn’t be.
I used to brag about my multi-tasking prowess as it seemed I was able to accomplish quite a lot of different things at once. The belief being that I was getting more done in less time. However, the question remains: “how well was I, are you, accomplishing these tasks?” Is the end result of the same quality as it might be if we simply focused completing one thing before moving on to the next?
And what of scattered thoughts? Why does it make sense to us that we can scatter our thoughts and energy across even opposing ends and still achieve our desires?
I want to be slim and healthy, yet my mind bounces from being healthy and slim to being out-of-shape and unhealthy. (Exactly what I was doing before I decided to focus solely on slim and healthy, and then lost 20 lbs). I want to live an abundant, opulent life, yet my thoughts bounce from being abundant to "I can't afford" and “why is everything so expensive” and back again.
Other writers on the subject of mind and thoughts have suggested that we have somewhere between 30,000 to 60,000 thoughts a day, most of them random, covering not just recent events, fears, anxieties, joys, or pleasures, but events and non-events throughout the entirety of our lives. Ever have a moment when out of the nowhere you had thought of a song you hadn’t heard since you were five? Ever ask yourself "why"?
While I certainly don’t expect, nor would I attempt, to control 30,000-plus thoughts passing through my mind, I can absolutely choose the ones on which to fix my attention. I can certainly choose to maintain laser-like focus on what I am wanting and disregard anything that doesn't align with that.
Scattered thoughts and attention equal a scattered life, which is why I’m willing to accept as my truth Dr. Robert’s quote about serving to masters that I included at the beginning of this post. Jesus said it this way:
“No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other.”
Which ever thoughts you choose to give your constant attention are the ones that you love and the ones that you will serve. Choose wisely.
As for me, I’m reigning in my scattered mind and expecting my external world to follow suit as I give primary attention to my dreams and aims.
Monday, January 1, 2018
Hello 2018!!
"Prayer is nothing more than the subjective appropriation of the objective hope. I hope for so-and-so; I want it as an objective fact. Now, I must go within and appropriate it subjectively."–Neville Goddard
For my first blog post of the new year, I decided to share one of my favorite lectures from Neville Goddard, Catch the Mood.
Relating the story of Jacob and Esau in the book of Genesis, Neville describes how awakening the "Second Man," Christ in us—which is our wonderful human imagination—enables us to fulfill our desires, whatever they be.
Neville also shares in this lecture how he used his imagination to book a return trip from Barbados to the states for him and his family in time for him to meet a speaking engagement, after being told there was no availability on any of the ships out of the islands until several months after the date of his commitment.
Enjoy and have a prosperous and healthy New Year!!
You can read the entire lecture here.
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