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.

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.

Christ in Me—The Power that Animates Me and All That I Behold

Changing States With Ease

For several weeks, I’ve been diving deeper, and deeper still, into the teachings of Neville Goddard. Admittedly, I don’t agree entirely with his interpretation of Biblical scriptures, yet his interpretations resonate with me as being for more closer to truth than many of those offered by the vast number of Biblical scholars, ministers, philosophers, New Agers and New Thought teachers, past or present.

This evening, I happened upon this awesome nugget from Neville. In one his lectures from 1968, Live the Answer Now, he shares how he helped a woman gain relief from her stomach ailment:

One day a lady in New York City came to see me regarding her stomach problems. While she was there we talked of higher things, and after the silence she returned to her home on Staten Island. Arriving there, she went into a favorite German restaurant and ate all the food she hadn't been able to eat in years, with no ill effects. I didn't give this lady any pills. I don't even know what a stomach looks like! I simply got this lady to move from the state that had the bad stomach!

And the timing couldn’t have been more perfect as I have for about two days now been experiencing stomach discomfort that was preventing me from fully enjoying my food. Despite what one might assume based upon my slim physique, I enjoy great tasting food, even some rich and fatty foods, and believe that food should be enjoyed.

The entire lecture is pretty awesome. I highly recommend reading it. A quick Google search will yield several sites offering free versions of the lecture. Or, you can search YouTube for an audio of the lecture.

---

Dream nobly. Dream better than the best you know. Neville Goddard

Disregard Appearances—Believe Only

"When it seems like nothing is happening, that is when everything is happening." - Catherine Ponder 

Believe only. That was today’s inspirational message from Joel Osteen, based upon the story of the Jairus, the man who sought out Jesus to heal his daughter who was gravely ill.

Jesus was interrupted several times on route to Jairus’ home to heal the young girl, and before reaching their destination, they received word it was too late: the girl had died.

But the story doesn't end there. “Believe only,” was all Jesus said to Jairus in one account of the story. “Believe only.” In spite of what you just heard, in spite of what you might even see later, “Believe only.”

Before Jairus himself could even say to Jesus “never mind, Lord, it’s too late,” effectively cancelling his request, he is told to “Believe only.”

“Disregard appearances, conditions, in fact all evidence of the senses that deny the fulfillment of your desire. Rest in the assumption that you are already what you want to be,” is how Neville Goddard frames it.

I will attest it is so much easier said than done. I am, as most people are, accustomed to judging my circumstances and conditions—whether they’re improving or getting worse or not at all changing—based upon what my five physical senses experience in the external world. It is challenging to accept that my physical senses do not and cannot see the whole truth of what is.

As Paul says: "So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." (2 Corinthians 4:18)

Yet that is what I am determined to do—fix my eyes on what I desire to see and experience and disregard any and all things that don’t conform to that ideal. Believe only. Believe only, and even that which is dead can be restored to life.

Are You Choosing What You Truly Want?

"The world is yourself pushed out. Ask yourself what do you want and then give it to yourself! Do not question how it will come about; just go your way knowing that the evidence of what you have done must appear, and it will." – Neville Goddard 

As I was doing my meditation this afternoon, the following question came up: Do you really go after what you want?

I allowed myself to expand on it further: Do you really go after what you truly want? Not what you think you can have or what you think you can get, or even what you think you should want or should have. And, not what others think you should want or should have or can get.

Do you really go after what YOU want? If not, why not? What is stopping you?

What reasons, rational or irrational, are you using to not have what you want?

What stories are you telling yourself to prevent you from going after what you want?

What excuses are you giving significance?

Who or what are you blaming and, hence, giving away your power to as being the cause of why you are settling for less than what you truly want?

What payoff/benefit are you receiving from not having or going after what you want?

Are you now able to release all of the stories, excuses, rationalizing, blaming, etc., and fully own what it is you really want and go after it?

Can you choose to love yourself enough to give yourself that which you truly want and desire?

Can you really allow yourself to have whatever you choose, without apology?

---

"To ask for something in prayer is to simply lay hold of what’s yours. You have the right, and even the responsibility to command your life." – Chris Michaels, Science of Mind minister

"Our blessings happen because we choose them." – Robert T. Stevens, Conscious Language

“The only thing standing between you and your goal is the bullshit story you keep telling yourself as to why you can't achieve it.” – Jordan Belfort (the Wolf of Wall Street)

Disregarding Appearances

Live your life in a sublime spirit of confidence and determination; disregard appearances, conditions, in fact all evidence of the senses that deny the fulfillment of your desire. Rest in the assumption that you are already what you want to be. – Neville Goddard


This journey I’m on feels scary and even lonely at times, yet I’m determined, fiercely so, to get through all of the current drama and step into my preferred reality of abundance, divine health, eternal youthfulness, fun, love, joy, peace, adventure—my life of sheer and utter bliss!!

To paraphrase the main character from one of my favorite movies, Auntie Mame, life’s a banquet serving up all sorts of amazing experiences, but most people are choosing to starve instead, or consume the same lame meal day after day after day.

Not me. I'm choosing to enjoy life's banquet offerings. I'm choosing to be, to feel myself into amazingly exciting experiences and the life of my choice. I’m choosing to believe that my desires and dreams, no matter how outrageous others think them, are not only possible, but already are.

And how will it all come about? I don’t know, but I’m choosing to trust that it’s all happening now. Even in those moments, especially in those moments, when external circumstances suggest it ain’t so.

---

"For we walk by faith, not by sight." – 2 Corinthians 5:7 

“You can’t be Average and Amazing – at the same time.” – Mr Twenty Twenty (Life Coach, FreeNeville.com)

A Magical Moment and A Promise Worth Keeping

"Know that anytime we exercise our imagination lovingly on behalf of another, we're actually and literally mediating God to man. So we can sit quietly in the darkness and listen as though we heard the good report we want to hear." - Neville Goddard


Every day I set about looking for at least one magical moment and one of today's moments is truly special.

I was browsing the Freeneville website to see if the site's creator, Mr. Twenty Twenty, or Neville Goddard offered any insight on channeled teachings, many of which I’m beginning to suspect are loads of BS and not to be fully believed or relied upon. The only article he has posted on the subject is in response to a woman named Theresa who’s mother was suffering from dementia in a way that is/was similar to the experience of my parents. She had asked his insight on whether it was okay to imagine her mother being healed or if she should accept her sickness as some new age teachings suggest because it may be the path by which her mother has chosen to exit this life. Mr. Twenty responded by offering the Neville Goddard quote noted at the beginning of this post, adding that by taking the time to imagine her mother at peace she was giving both of them a gift.

I actually posted a response to the article in September 2013, sharing my own story as follows:

Thank you so much Theresa for sharing your situation with your mom. I had been going through something very similar with my mom (and dad) where she went from being the most pleasant, jovial, sweetest, generous, peaceful and strong woman I know to someone I hardly recognized. Similar to your experience, the words that would come out of her mouth sometimes were hateful and foul. She's complaining and paranoid and the doctors, friends, my siblings kept saying this is something we just have to accept and deal with.

I chose from the beginning, like you, not to accept this, but there were days when I thought I might cave. But, I can see in my mother’s eyes who she desires to be—peaceful, loving, calm, gentle, content, trusting—and I can see her looking for someone to help set her free. And there have been more moments recently where she is the person she wants to be.

Hearing your story and your belief “that it doesn’t have to be this way” and then reading Mr. Twenty Twenty’s response only strengthens my resolve that things don’t have to be the way the doctors say for “all things are possible.” I love the statement of Jesus you mentioned from the Greatest Story Ever Told movie. I think that pretty much sums up the attitude I want to have when I see sickness and lack around me.

Thank you Mr. Twenty Twenty for your teachings on Neville and your response to Theresa. You are helping so many people like us become the people we want to be by holding fast to our dreams for ourselves and those we love until they are fully realized.

My dad had only recently been "diagnosed" as having dementia when I posted the above. I may no longer be able to help him, although I gave it everything I could up until the very end. I clung to hope like a woman adrift in an ocean clings to a life preserver until the rescue ship comes. Even after I received initial word of his death, my inner being still chose to believe the words Jesus spoke at Lazarus’ tomb: “I am the resurrection and the life...” I will continue to believe for my mom: "He sent His word and healed them….”

I needed this magical moment today. So did my mom.

As for the movie quote referenced in my reply, according to Theresa there's a scene in which Jesus heals a blind man and then rebukes an observer for asking what if the man he just healed of blindness wanted to be blind: “the man lives in darkness and while I am on this earth he will see!”

My belief is that Jesus being fully aware of the power within him lived in such a state of perfect faith that sickness simply couldn't exist around him, nor could lack, in the same way that darkness can't exist in the place light is shone.

---

"He sent His word and healed them, And delivered them from their destructions." - Psalm 107:20

"We possess the same Spirit, the same power, the same authority; we don't use it, but we possess it." - My dad, Leon Don King, said in remarks given during a Christmas service held in 2006

"God give unto me the grace to accept the things I cannot change. And grant unto me the power to change the things I cannot accept!" - Richard Bartlett, author of "Matrix Energetics"

My External World is Only a Mirror—I Can Change What I See

I feel as if I've spent lot of time today, a lot of time this week, in meditation. Not always sitting still, sometimes I go for meditative walks in nature. I've learned over the years that it's easy for me to quiet my thoughts or even become aware of my thoughts while walking. For me, taking a walk through a nearby park, or at the lake, and especially the beach, almost immediately bring on a sense of calm.

I am learning to take note of my feelings and emotions in any moment. It's the first step to being able to direct them so they no longer control me. I no longer wish to let myself be triggered into negative thinking or negativity by external circumstances or other people. As I become more aware of my thoughts, feelings, and emotions, and notice what I also happen to be experiencing in my external environment, I am coming to accept as true the teachings of people like Neville Goddard, Joseph Murphy, Genevieve Behrend—that something in me is the cause of my experiences; rather than my experiences being the cause of what's happening within me.

Like the apostle Paul, I make no claims to have apprehended all that there is to know and understand about life/human existence, nor do I claim to be at all times in full control of my behavior, thoughts, or emotions. Yet, I do daily make the effort to remove my focus from any past mistakes or unpleasant events, and focus on what I am thinking, feeling, and experiencing in the moment. And if I notice or feel that I have lost focus of the person I choose to be at that moment or the goals/dreams I choose to accomplish, I make the necessary shifts to get back into alignment.

It isn’t easy. There are certain people and/or situations I encounter or have encountered that I allow to trigger me to feel all sorts of ick!—sad, irritated, panicked, upset, angry, frustrated, ashamed, guilty. Heaviness might be a better word, since "bad" connotes judgment, and I've also decided I no longer want to eat of the tree of good and evil by living in judgment. There are some events I've experienced in my past that I may likely always react to with heavier emotions if I decide to dwell on them. But I do prefer to experience lighter feelings like joy, peace, calm, assurance, etc. For some events, like the death of my oldest and youngest brothers, one of my nephews, and, most recently, my dad, I am learning to shift focus more quickly away from their deaths and feelings of loss to all the wonderful experiences I shared with them during their life time here, in this realm. Much lighter.

In any event, my mother, whom I love dearly, just happens to be among those people who  seem to trigger heavy emotions in me, sometimes. My reaction to her words or actions was like a reflex; until about a week or so ago when I realized I can choose to respond differently. I can choose to laugh. I can choose to sing a song. I can choose anything other than "ick."

To be honest, this isn't a new realization, I just haven't consistently been exercising my right to make that choice in those instances when the opportunity arose. And that's okay, because there are times when I do like feeling pissed off! I fully appreciate my humanity as much as my spiritual nature. But joy does feel so much better/more joyful/lighter and it helps to draw myriad wonderful experiences into my life.

This week, in addition to choosing a different response, I am choosing to address the cause and ask: “What in me is creating what I am experiencing in relationship to her?”

Much like a mirror reflects back to us our physical form, the people we encounter and the experiences or circumstances we encounter—the ones we like and the ones we don’t—are only reflecting back to us who we are within, our state of being. Whatever we see or don’t see is revealing something to us about ourselves. In his book, The Law and the Promise, Neville Goddard writes:

To attempt to change circumstances before you change your imaginal activity, is to struggle against the very nature of things. There can be no outer change until there is first an imaginal change. Everything you do, unaccompanied by an imaginal change, is but futile readjustment of surfaces.

I suppose then that you can liken attempts to change your external world without first changing your internal world, to attempting to change the image you see in the mirror, or a photo of yourself, rather than changing physical body both are reflecting. From a practical standpoint, changing the mirror image is simply impossible; changing the photo delusional unless it’s your intent to use the altered photo as visual motivation to get to work changing your physical body. And there are hosts of metaphysical teachers, including Neville, who would argue that you can never hope to permanently change even your physical body until you truly change the image of it you have within. Because I have personal experience with this, I agree.

Getting back to my mother or anyone else who I allow or have allowed to trigger my heavy emotions, this evening as I sat and meditated, I felt grateful for the opportunity to see what's really lurking within me as revealed through my mom. That which I am aware of about myself, I can easily change, if I choose, by changing my thoughts and feelings about myself. That which I am not aware of, I have no possibility of changing.

This may seem difficult to believe, it was for me when I first heard it and I still struggle with it, but external factors—other people, circumstances, events—are never really the cause of how you feel. You are.

---

"If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change." Wayne Dyer

"Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves." Carl Jung

Make Every Day Lovely

It's the first day of a new week. How's your day going? Is it so far all that you hoped, planned, intended?

If not, don't accept it. Stop what your doing right now and revise it. In your mind's eye imagine that your day is exactly as you want it to be. Really allow yourself to feel, touch, hear, experience all that you want to feel, touch, hear and experience.

I learned this principle or revising my day from Neville Goddard. He spoke of it numerous times in his lectures and his books. And, while I don't use it consistently, which would be helpful to me if I did, I do use it and have found it does work wonders not only for my mood, but in helping to transform my day so that I do experience more of what I would like.

In Neville's own words...

If you take me seriously today, tonight do not let the sun descend upon any vexation of the day. Just look at it, don't deny it, don't duck it, look at it that you may prune it and then reshape it. Take the conversations with your friends today, were they pleasant, were they arguments, no matter what it is, were they negative? 

Then rewrite the script and just imagine the conversation to have taken place that now you are rewriting for the first time. And it will take place, for everything in your world that you behold, though it appears without, it is within, in your imagination. And this wonderful imagination of yours is Christ Jesus. Imagination is the actual habitation of every created thing. No matter what you see in the world, it springs from your imagination. So that's where you go, that's the workshop, the garden of God.

I can't say that I understand fully how or why it works, I only know that it does work, much in the same way that I know when I put my foot on the gas pedal of a car, the car will move (provided there's gas in the car). I don't understand all the mechanics or physics behind it, I just do it and the car goes. You don't always need to know how something works to benefit from it's working.

So just try it—revise your day your way. Even if your day isn't transformed, I believe it will be, you will absolutely feel better.

What is the Most Important Thing About Me?

I borrowed the title for this post from a lecture given by Neville Goddard that I was listening to you this evening. It’s among one of my favorites. He shares about a woman who wrote to him of a vision in which she was taking a test and asked the question: What is the most important thing about me? 

I pondered the answer myself as I listened and reached the same conclusion as the woman of whom Neville spoke: I AM! 

To the unenlightened this might sound like an egotistical claim; however, the truth is that before I, or you, can be anything, do anything, have anything, or create anything in this world, we must first BE. The most important thing about you and me is that we exist—we simply are. Sit with that thought for just a moment. How does it make you feel? I live. I move. I have being. I have awareness. How wonderful is that?

Hear more of what Neville has to say about your wonderful I AMness.