If we are all so unhappy, why don’t we do something about it? It’s not that hard to change what you think.

But it is hard to STOP.

Here’s the rub. Feeling happy is uncomfortable.  The happy vibration clashes with the vibration we have, like fingernails on a chalk board–or listening to Pachelbel’s Canon when you are expecting Radiohead. Imagine an old-school rapper being forced to listen to  Saint Saens, or vice versa.

It’s like a new pair of Birkenstocks. You have to wear them a while before they take on the shape of your feet. It takes a few days to break them in.  If you just jump on them and go on a ten-mile hike, you won’t make it.

Changing an emotional state is the same way. It takes effort to think new thoughts with positive messages and then NOT to follow them with cynical or sarcastic humor that just slaps us us back down where we are used to being.

You think, “I could win the lottery,”  raising your vibration to hope. But then you add, “I’d just have to hide out from everyone who wanted to get my money.”

That CLUNK sound is your vibration hitting bottom.

You dutifully write your affirmations:  I am debt free. I am healthy. I am thin…but with each stroke of the pen, you think about how much shorter than the month your paycheck is, or how thin people have to watch what they eat, or how hard it would be to exercise.

CLUNK.

Being unhappy is only comfortable because you are used to it. You practice it very hard every day.

If you worked at anything as hard as you work at being unhappy, you’d be the world’s leading expert. That big weight that holds you down and makes you tired when you get up in the morning is the chain of unhappiness you forged yesterday, and that you are forging every minute that you aren’t working to be postive.

Try for fifteen minutes, five minutes even,  to think a positive thought whenever you hear something unhappy.  Do you get stopped by the traffic light? Admire the glow of the red light.  Congratulate yourself for driving safely.  Take a deep breath and say, “I’m doing well today.”  Anything positive.

Every time you start to say “Yes, But…”, STOP.

Start
Talking
Only
Positive.

The old oak lets the other plants grow in its branches.

I heard my coworker complaining about one of our prospective students–one we probably don’t want. How hard it was to let her speak her truth and not try to change her mind. That her words irritated me shows me that I still want to fix other people.

That doesn’t work. It really doesn’t work when they don’t ask to be fixed, since they don’t see themselves as broken. That’s my perception.

Heal myself is all I can do.

Speak what I want. Think what I want. Meditate on what I want. Ask for what I want, and work while I am waiting for the answers to tell me what to do next. It’s so simple.

Not a big ritual with lots of drama. Not an unpronounceable incantation.  No fireworks or immolation or pain.  Simply changing my mind, at the right time, NOW.

It may not be my job to figure out how I can get what I want, what steps to take,  what jobs to do, because first I must believe, and imagine, and trust that what I want, wants me too.

No, that’s not very realistic.  But so far, realistic hasn’t done much for me. I do have to pay the bills and go in to work every day, at least for now, until I can see what the next step is.  I can be at peace where I am as I am working and waiting. After all, the job I have now is a cinch compared to others I have done.

It’s a manifestation along the way to have a full-time job with benefits doing work I like and learning new stuff every day. It’s a manifestation to find old pastimes boring and to be restless for writing and other creative activities. It’s a manifestation to see beauty in both sun and rain, wind and calm, weeds and flowers.

It hasn’t always been that way, but I am learning.  Think about what I want ONLY. Say what I want ONLY.  Find those rosy, optimistic glasses and put them over my mental filter.  I am more aware every day of the good things that come to me and how lucky I truly am.   The more aware I am, the more blessings come my way.

May you, too, blessed be.

Nixie waits patiently for Mom to get off the computer.

Maybe I am just getting old, but it seems that my cat and I both wake up at 3:30 or so every morning. She goes out, I go, and then I lie in the bed wishing myself back to sleep.

For the last couple of days, I’ve been writing instead. This is taking an action to be who I say I am, a writer.  After all, once you have a goal, and even part of a plan, then you have to take some kind of action, the next logical step. This alerts the Universe that you are shifting in your vibration. That’s what “be the change” means. At least 2 cents worth of it.

I’d rather be asleep, but I am here pecking away rather than half-dreaming about facebook and wordpress connections and figuring them out.  What I need today is  to find that peaceful place that says ” This too shall pass.”  It’s not like anything in my life is hard.  No earthquakes, no floods, no dings on my new car from the hailstorm yesterday, plenty of foodin the fridge, and I have a home, a warm bed, a cat…nothing here to complain about.

I’ll get the kinks smoothed out.  I was going to write “hammered” and then “ironed” but I am working on changing the language I use to be softer, less forceful and violent.  I want to think in ways that are more peaceful and to become less frustrated with learning new computer skills to translate human desires into digital content.

Change your thoughts, change your world.

It’s quiet and peaceful at 4 am.  The cat sits staring into the dark outside the window, and the turtle snoozes with his beak just breaking the water. I’m wrapped up in my afgan to stay warm in my nightgown.  I might even go back to bed for another hour, having written.  Maybe I’ll dream of the solution I am looking for,and maybe I won’t be so worried about it if it doesn’t come to me today.

Life is good.  Come on, cat. Let’s get another snooze in.

But I did find a lot of cobwebs on the bookcase and a number of thoughts about unfinished projects that were once dreams of mine. Cobwebs are easy to dust away, but what about those dreams?

At least one dream I had was to have a website for goddess seekers to use as a study and meditation guide. I did get it up and running, Find a Goddess, but I have never gotten the database update page working properly so that it is easy to add new information to the database or to update and edit the mistakes that were entered when I was learning how to design and display information.

I’ve talked to a few people–students mostly–about fixing the code, but they don’t want to mess with it. It’s hard to go in behind someone else and figure out the logic and why something is coded as it is. I’m sure it’s not coded with any style–it was a learning project.

I’ve taken time–several days at a time–to fix this project, which has been on the back burner some three or four years now. Every time I start to work on it, I just get frustrated and  overwhelmed. But I decided that if I could do all the rest of it myself, I could get that page fixed and then plan to spend a hour a week or so updating and making the site the kind of place I wanted it to be.

But today I decided that with the right attitude and some pre-paving, I could plan to tackle the project tomorrow. I’m visualizing feeling calm as I look through the various attempts I’ve made before. I have made some notes on how to think about the code, so that I am not designing and coding with the same synapses. I can write simple code (php/HTML) or I can be creative, but not both at the same time. So I did the design today, and I plan to code tomorrow.

I feel so much better about dusting off this project. I would eventually like to set it up to bring in a little money now and then, with some good affiliate programs or adwords, but I’d mainly like for it to work. I would feel that I’d done what I set out to do.

While it remains to be seen how well the project will go, I feel better by making a decision rather than pushing the thought away that I (AGAIN) have not completed something that was important to me, and that (AGAIN) I am not where I hoped to be by now.

It is okay to let a project go, too. I could even take it down and feel reasonably good about that. But I want to get it working like I envisioned it and learn more about how that works. I have always found that developing a skill pays off in the long run, even if it’s only a little and a little late.

I’ll do an update on this topic next week, but for now, I’m visualizing an updated database with new entries and corrections from the old ones.  Wish me luck! That’s what I’m wishing for myself.

I  whined grumpily that I was tired, and she said something brilliant.

“Why don’t you raise your vibration so we can keep working on this?  Then you can find out what you need to do today., and you’ll feel better.”

At moment, I could only think dark and cloudy thoughts. I didn’t want to do the work anymore, even though I had asked her to help me. I wanted to just give up and escape.

“Think of it this way,” she said. “If your mind was a machine, and there was a piece that was broken or worn out, you could just stop for a minute, take out the bad part and put in a new part.”

I could see it in my mind–a sort of grimy, greasy machine with a lot of gears, and a handle that I was having to push very hard to turn. When I stopped to look at the imaginary machine,  I could see that one piece was missing some cogs. I took it out–it was conveniently located at eye level and not constrained by serpentine belts, bearings or safety covers–and replaced it with a bright, shiny new one, which of course magically appeared in my hand.  It was a new thought.

Even that seemed like a lot of work, just imagining it. But I did feel better, just for thinking about something else for a few seconds.

Then Rachel told me how she could always find that feeling, any time she needed it. She said, “I just imagine flying…soaring around a thermal…” She stretched out her arms. ” or swooping around, not doing anything, no strings, not looking for food or doing anything but enjoying being in the air. ”  She once drew a picture of a happy harpy several years ago, and the image of it came into my mind.

The Happy Harpy By Rachel H. White

Just watching her was uplifting. My grumpiness was not completely gone, but it had lightened enough that I would at least imagine standing on top of a mountain or sitting up in a tree, always a place of peace and calm for me.

I can remember dreaming of flying. I decided that such a daydream would be a good one to cultivate and practice for when I was feeling weighted down.  So I’ve been spending a fem seconds every time I think about it , just imagining soaring in the sky, with the sun on my feathered back and the wind rippling the edges of my pinfeathers.

Try it. Soaring like the eagles beats the heck out of hanging out with the turkeys.

That depends on me  and what I do with the sensitivity. If I allow myself to focus on the things that irritate me, causing me to focus my awareness on them, the sensitivity becomes harmful, attracting more irritation. But I can shift my awareness–that’s the good thing. How many times  I have blocked out extraneous noises, a headache or toothache, or distracting or disturbing sights by focusing my awareness on my work, on doing something else.  By controlling my focus, my awareness, I have the capability of controlling my experience of whatever is going on around me.  In that sense, I am the center of my universe–at least from my perspective!

If the thing that irritates me–say a grain of sand in my shoe–is something I can fix, then the sensitivity brings it to my awareness so I can fix it. Then I can focus on something else. If I choose not to fix it, then it can become a larger problem–a blister or hole in my foot that is more difficult to ignore, and may even become health-threatening.

But if I notice that the irritation is something I can’t fix, I can learn to turn my focus to something soothing–music or natural sounds, the feel of  warm socks on myfeet, something pretty on my desk–I can work at becoming more sensitive to positive stimuli. Many of us take the pleasant for granted instead of seeking it out–it’s the whole smell the roses thing. Most people are very good at focusing to avoid awareness, but not shifting awareness to some better thought.

Some prisoners of war talk about surviving solitary confinement and even torture by distracting their awareness to some intellectual thought process or memory.  This is illustrated in the TV series Firefly with a story that depicts an ongoing discussion of the relationship of Captain Mel to Pilot Wash’s wife Zoe while they are being tortured. Both men suffer intensely, but the stronger mental focus of Captain Mel allows Wash to survive and to understand what is behind the “war stories” shared between Zoe and Mel. (spoiler alert!) They do not lose their minds even though Mel is actually killed and then revived. While this is TV, it is based on things that happen in the real world.

We instinctively scan for possibly unpleasant experiences in order to avoid them. It takes a lot of effort at first to allow someone else to do what we find irritating, while we look for something that feels better to think about, to pay attention to. I’m certainly working on that myself. Think of it this way: What right do I have to interfere in someone else’s life, especially if that person does not ask me to help?

Even if I let others else irritate me, I can back away (turn down the sensitivity–or at least work on turning it down) to find the awareness of what it is about what they are doing that irritates me.  Usually it’s something that I don’t like to admit that I do–a shadow projection. Allowing the awareness of how I am participating in being irritated is very informative. I can then take action to change myself.

Awareness is focused. I am insensitive to others when I am only thinking about my insecurities. When I am aware of the other person, I can listen and be present with less anxiety. The key is awareness and focus. The sensitivity helps to develop awareness, especially if I make the effort to find out to what kind of stimulus I am sensitive. But then it is up to me to do something about the sensitive spot.

If I find that a TV show (friend, book, activity)  moves me away from my desired vibration, then I decide whether to keep participating. If I can’t leave (turn it off, close it, stop it)  for whatever reason, I can shift my awareness to analysis of the situation, to observation, to something else. It is up to me to decide and to take action.

I can make  increased sensitivity a Good Thing, or I can suffer.

But then he stopped and chatted with the man in the flatbed, all in Spanish. The flatbed driver hopped out and got two large baskets of peaches from the back of his truck.

Mmmmmmm….peaches! The railroad track goes through a neigborhood where people walk because they don’t have cars. So the flatbed soon attracted some passersby, and the driver made a few more sales. I decided I had waited long enough on the train which showed no signs of moving on, and did the three point turn.

AS I started back to the cut-through, I asked about the peaches…$12 for a big basket. When I rolled the window down for him to put them in the front seat, they smelled like warm sunshine and sweet tea. These were local, ripe peaches, not some fuzzy rocks shipped in from somewhere else. People have heard of Georgia peaches, but these are from the Gaffney area, immortalized by the Peachoid.

I cruised on home, hungrier by the minute with that wonderful smell beside me–it’s hard to eat a ripe peach and drive without getting sticky all over from that wonderful juice.

When I pulled into my neighborhood, I saw one of my dog-walking neighbors, a nice lady who does not speak any English. She looks Eastern European with her babuska and her little black ragmop dog. I stopped and handed her a couple of the peaches, that being as many as she could handle without a bag to put them in. She beamed and said thank you. Nothing like sunshine shared.

I am so glad that I didn’t get upset about having to wait for the train. If I had just sighed and taken the long way around, I wouldn’t have any of those glorious peaches. Roses aren’t the only thing to take time to stop and smell…and eat. I’l'l be up to my elbows in peach juice tonight as I peel and slice them for freezing. Yummmm.

You do have a choice.

You can ride the thermal like a hawk on a sunny day, or you can circle the drain. “Circling the drain” is dark jargon used to describe terminal patients, those who are just at the edge of death. Like dishwater spiraling in the sink as it goes down the drain, you can bring your thoughts and emotions into where you feel trapped and in the dark about what to do next.

Or you can change directions and float upward by changing the content of your thoughts.

It takes practice. But that is why “the secret” is a secret. The law of attraction works on your emotional state, not on the thoughts, the words that your mind uses to make meaning of your physical sensations.

If your fantasy of having a new carrera, mulitple streams of residual income and a hot date every Friday night does not make you feel warm and fuzzy, then it isn’t likely to happen. Even if you work hard to get there, you are circling the drain of failure if you don’t change your thoughts to those that make you feel good.

A simple distraction from the downward spiral is to count your breaths. It’s a form of meditation. Breathe in, hold for a bit, breathe out, count one. Repeat 25 times, if you can. You’ll likely be asleep before you get to 15. If not, keep counting. Breathing is good for you, and less stress-producing than counting sheep.

If appropriate, go outside and sense any living thing–a tree, a flower, a bush, a bird. By sense, I mean smell, touch, listen to, view, taste it physically or in your imagination. Of course you can’t really touch a living bird chirping in a tree high above your head, but you can imagine the feel of it in your hand, its tiny heart beating, its soft feathers, its beak pecking you to get away. You can taste the air and know that it supports the bird. You can listen to the sound of the leaves in the tree and caress its bark as it cleans the air.

Your feelings are affected by your thoughts, and your thoughts are explanations of why you feel the way you do. Today’s depression may only be a backlash from yesterday’s sugar high, chemical rather than some archetypal hangup about your childhood. Even with chemical imbalances, you can choose to think of things that you can appreciate, even if it’s your ballpoint pen, your keyboard, your favorite t-shirt. It helps you get back in balance to find a bright spot, physically or psychically.

You do control what you think. So are you going to ride the thermal? You can see so much better from up there what to do as the next logical step.

My kind of girl.

Her comments about “old tapes” reminded me of the first time I went into therapy. I had a lot of memories and misperceptions about various things I had been told growing up. I learned to visualize the reel-to-reel tapeplayer and blow it up ala Mission Impossible. For those children among my readers, this was a show back int he 70s where Peter Graves would get a cassette tape with a mission, and as soon as he played it, it exploded. I’m sure it wouldn’t get through Homeland Security these days, but that was back in the day.

The messages in those old tapes do represent a list of missions we need to accomplish to make our wishes come true. The tape that says “You’re fat!” needs to be erased and taped over with a new message “I take responsibility for my health.” “Life is hard” can be revised to “Life is good.” “You’re not good enough” can be transformed into “I’m the best me I can be. ”

Blowing up the tapes works, but re-recording them works better. It takes the same amount of energy, but it lessens the resentment and anger that the mental explosion perpetrates.

What tapes are you revising?

Wrong. There ain’t no such animal in this dimension.

Abraham, as chanelled by Jerry & Ester Hicks, says, “You never get it wrong, and you never get it done.” At any level, you can check the validity of this idea. Doing SOMETHING towards getting what you want is always better than doing nothing, so a step is a step in the right direction. But everything changes, and what was nearly complete 5 minutes ago may be overkill or inadequate now. Still, you have something to work with, and you can adapt. Change never ceases. Change or die.

As my buddy the IT Guru says, ” A website is not finished until it is taken down.” Finished, perfect… dead.

The phrase comes to mind, “Perfection in Christ” meaning that after we leave the physical and join with the ONE, we will be perfect. Abraham calls that “croaking.” I am not ready to croak just yet.

The trigger for this post is my on-going process with my grad school portfolio, first submitted a year ago, then last August, again in October, and again in February. I’m supposed to get it back Tuesday via FedEx from a third reviewer. The time for being frustrated with this is over. As I told the dean, “it’s just another hoop to jump through.” She thought I was being funny.

But that’s exactly what it is. I am learning something that I need to know–perhaps that academia is not going to give me the key to the door I want to unlock. I wanted my portfolio to be perfect–there ain’t so such animal, and I don’t have the skills att this time to create the multimedia extravaganza that I wanted. It doesn’t matter if the review comittee or some unfortunate grad student of the future is “wowed” by my work. It just is.

I get a better return on investment by writing blogs. Did I get it wrong by going to grad school, incurring $36k of student loans all for a degree I don’t need? No, the things I learned in this process are not reflected in my academic work. It’s a step along the way.

My portfolio will not be perfect, but it will eventually be finished. Graduation parties are somethinglikea wake after all. Maybe then I can tweak it to make some kind of youtube video from it or post my papers with the APA rendered out in an article database, recycled, not embalmed.

That was the path I chose to get to here. It is about the journey, the process and not the destination. The destination is death… perfection.

Live now. Do something about your dreams today. Even if you only draw a picture, write a blog, email a friend, hire a consultant.