Breathing : a collection of musings on Inspiration

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The Inhale

Inspiration is such a lovely word but inspiration itself is overrated. You don’t have to be inspired, you just have to do.

Right now I’m not feeling inspired at all and I don’t know if I should be writing about inspiration. This is an experiment. Will I get inspired through the writing? Is it as I say?

How romantic to be yanking paper from the jaws of a typewriter, scrunching it into a ball and lobbing it at the waste paper bin. How satisfying to get the shot in.

Working with a computer means I can and should write down whatever comes into my head without analysing. Editing comes later. Ideas need to be caught as they come in on a gust of wind.

The History

Inspire = to instil something in the heart or mind of someone or to influence, move, or guide by the divine or supernatural.

Elizabeth Gilbert explains how the ancient Greeks and Romans viewed creativity as not coming from humans but “was a divine attendant spirit that came to human beings from a divine and unknowable source.” The reason they came at certain times was also unknowable and they called these spirits Damens (Greeks) or Genius (Romans). So genius came to an artist as they were doing their work to help and shape the outcome. This belief protected the artist from the result of their work, from both criticism and narcissism.

Today in class as I wrote the word respiration’ on the board, I wondered what it could have in common with the word inspiration. I reminded myself to look it up. It wasn’t the first time I’d wanted to know.

It comes from the Latin Inspirare, meaning to breathe into.

Things that are breath-taking are inspiring. Things that are breath-taking slow our thoughts and clear our mind. We can use our breath to slow our mind. New and more interesting thoughts pierce the surface of our consciousness.

The Visitors

Inspiration is a feeling if wanting to, of being in the mood, motivated, rather than an idea.

It begins with an intention. I have to plan to do something first. My head is not filled with stories, only voices. I have to get quiet to hear them.

These voices live in the depths of my mind, trapped like miners, they burst suddenly into the light.

They belong somewhere, I just know it. I just have to find the right place for each one. I try to hang onto them. I start by writing them all down. Each one deserves a place on the white piece of paper. Each one gains some permanency in black ink.

The Reason

I often don’t know what I think until I write it down. That’s where this urge comes from.

I wanted to live as deeply as Anais Ninn. People living deeply have no fear of death, she said. I wanted to feel as deeply. I wanted to write. But I didn’t know where to start.

One weekend alone in Bombay, my friend Satheesh had given me the job of recording old Hindhi vinyls onto a computer to stop me from getting bored. I was bored. Words came to me, images were born. I wrote.

Stephen King, as a young writer, felt most inspired working in the laundry room of a hospital. Such conditions were fertile grounds for tales of horror. Working as a teacher, he hardly wrote a word.

Inspiration loves monotony.

The Location

There’s a time and place for inspiration. This time is when it’s most inconvenient. Walks at the beach, sitting in the sauna, about to fall asleep – basically any time when you have no pen or paper or phone at hand.

The art gallery is a fine place for inspiration - not in the ’What? I could paint that!’ way. Colour and form breathe into us. The mind slows to the rhythm of the gallery and the art infuses beyond bones and blood vessels, it seeps into the cells.

You will never understand the description on the wall. You don’t have to understand.  You will be inspired, even if you don’t know it yet. Just like what you like and allow yourself to be pulled, even if it is to the fire extinguisher. Take photos and feel good.

The Exhale

I’m 100% sure.

Did you make it up though?

Yes, I did. But I’m 100% sure.

the story of all creation

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Phew! Now that I’ve got out what I wanted to say about my desk, I can carry on with what I actually wanted to write about before I got blown off course. Okay, I promise that was the last of the nautical metaphors.

we're all fronds here

we’re all fronds here

Today a pure white sky sits beyond the rooftops and the wind is making the field of ferns dance outside the window. Clouds have a way of getting us to look inwards. I sure do love me some soft fluff (clouds).

Or perhaps it is the Alain de Botton talk we went to see on Tuesday night in Zurich. In case you don’t know, Alain de Botton  is an amazingly smart and funny philosophical writer, whose books include Essays in Love (about the stages of romantic love), The Art of Travel, The Architecture of Happiness (actually about architecture), How Prouost Can Change Your Life and the latest, Religion for Atheists. If you haven’t read, watched or listened to him, you definitely should. My next book shall be called ‘How Alain de Botton Can Change Your Mind.’

Anyway, the talk was about this latest book – about what aetheists (like himself) can learn from religions. One of the points was about learning – he compared how the basic principal of universities is that you could take a person, open up their head and pour all this information into it and expect them to remember it. Religions do things differently. They take a simple message and repeat it over and over. They know that man is flawed. We want to remember, but we do not. We want to celebrate and comemorate, yet we forget. Religions deal with this realistically by telling us when we should be doing certain things and reserving days in the calendar for them. He gave the example of looking at the moon. We like looking at the moon, we think it’s a good idea and we should do this more but we forget. The Zen Buddhists have a special moon viewing day for this. You see.

This got me thinking about creativity (of course). From my experience, being creative is about making a commitment, sitting down and sticking to it. Of course, it would be so nice to just wake up whenever my body wanted and spend the day in creative pursuit, going with the flow and what not, like in this blog post I recently read. But due to certain constraints on my every day, ‘creative pursuits’ is something that needs to be scheduled in. It must be remembered. It has to be made time for and squashed between must-do chores. But that’s okay. It still happens.

Writing this blog can get crowded out by the necessities of eating and sleeping and working. That’s why it’s Thursday – that’s what I’m saying.

Have I said this all before a thousand times? I probably have. See, Alain de Botton was right again. In that case, I’ll carry on with religious zeal, submitting more intently to the fervor. We could all do with the reminder…

But hang on, creativity is not something that only gets a twenty-minute time slot before breakfast or a couple of hours when you should be at the gym. All of us are always creating. The force of creation is what’s driving the whole universe! Cells are regenerating, plants are organically taking form and babies are being birthed, rocks are turning to sand, fire and wood to ash, asteroids are sculpting new surfaces and somewhere in London a light-switch is being turned on and off and even that is being called art.

So if creation is happening anyway, we might as well put some thought into it.

Everything we do or say is our creation. We are constantly creating our experiences, creating our life.

Take red lipstick. Imagine if you were a woman who wore red lipstick everyday (or for the men if you’d prefer, the equivalent – a beret?). Firstly, you would be making a statement without ever opening your Ruby Tuesday lips. You are projecting an image and creating the art of your life. And red lipstick makes us feel a certain way  – feminine and fierce. You would be influencing your mood. You would be just like Gwen Stefani, who doesn’t just live it, she is it.

Even if we are not conscious of it, our habits and ways become part of our characters in other people’s minds.  I think of the way my Mum drinks her afternoon tea and the way my Dad bangs his fist on the table to wake himself up. Like it or not, we are all memorable.

I have been reading about Kundalini Yoga and have stumbled upon some diamonds. As usual, I look to the wisdom of a genuine yogi to give some razzamattaz to my so-very-humble-human words. And so Yogi Bhajan reminds us,

Whenever you do something, do it as a piece of art. Otherwise just don’t do it. Let everything express the creativity of you.

I hope you don’t get the ‘I don’t have time for this!’ feeling because of this, but look at it as an invitation to get more from the everyday. It is not an item to be added to the ‘things to do’ later list or something to worry about getting perfect, but a way to have more presence and beauty in your life.

We all know when we are dressed well, we feel good. When we cook a pretty dinner, we feel good. When we write our signature, we feel good. When we are face-to-face with fresh flowers, we feel good. When we have an interesting conversation, we feel good. When we read something inspiring, we feel good. And this feeling is available to us everyday if we choose to put a few thoughts into our actions.

Zooming in, what you do is an expression of who you are. Zooming out, we are each just a brushstroke upon the universe.

I think everyday in life is art. What you do. How you dress. The way you love someone. And how you talk. Your smile and your personality. What you believe in, and all your dreams. The way you drink your tea. How you decorate your home. Or party. Your grocery list. The food you make. How your writing looks. And the way you feel.

Life is art.

Sigh

IMG_1797

Life of Mi (ode to desk)

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New York was great and all but I was happy to come back to my desk. My desk is my sanctuary, my shrine, my rubber raft on the sea of life. I need it to navigate through the rough waters and also to enjoy the tranquillity of the calm. I love my pretty little boat, although I like to dip my toe out now and then and go swimming even. But I always return to the boat.

I am also very territorial of the boat. I will not move my papers or take down my pictures for anybody – except if someone was staying over and then it would be embarrassing. I get shy if people look too closely at it because it would be like looking in my brain and reading my secret thoughts. The desk is my own private colony for nudists.  Clothed people are not allowed.

Not a day goes by when I don’t make time to sit at my desk, despite the busyness of the week. The week is gusty and easy to get swept away by.  I tie myself down to the desk.

a day in the life of a girl getting high

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The day back to work after the holiday is hardly the best one of the year. I woke up with a vague sense of depression. I was in a daze. I had only been away a week, but I didn’t know how I was ever going to work again. Could I still do it?

Then there was the anxiety. I had landed safely but my suitcase hadn’t. Where was it? Where do lost suitcases go? The women at lost and found knew as much about it as I did. The case was in the stratosphere, a blank space, off the map. I wanted the baggage handlers to be checking under each conveyor belt, desperately searching, as I would have been. They were being so passive about it. It was frustrating.

I didn’t want to wait. I wanted to know now! I know I’ve written about waiting patiently but…

I thought about Posh and Becks and how their suitcases had been stolen off the conveyor belt once…

I remembered a story about a couple who steal their own suitcase every year and then claim it on insurance to pay for their next trip…but that would mean I’d stolen my own suitcase…had I?

I pictured my suitcase in a hot and sweaty airport in rural Guatemala… bagagetagless!

I saw it languishing at JFK airport in some dark corner, unnoticed, forgotten, forlorn.

I willed myself to remember all that was in the case and focus on what I’d miss the most.

Then there were the usual suspects lined up, the stages I go through, when dealing with life…

1. Calm acceptance

2. Pressure on my brain

3. Sleep

4. Hopefulness

5. Trying to change the situation

6. Anger

7. Crying

8. Praying

9. Sleep

10. Grumpiness

And this is all well and good to go through but I knew better than to dwell in my dark mood forever.

We have a choice over how we feel.

When we are down, we have the tendency to drag the table-cloth and all the cutlery and crockery down with us. It’s okay to feel bad for a while and just lay there in the smashed plates, but at sometime we have to get back up and clean that shit.

So much depends on our outlook. Like sometimes in New York I found the subway to be a stinky degenerating place and other times it was a kind of okay convenient means of transport with some pretty chatty New Yorkers making my day. I’m sure you have your own subway experience on a regular basis. Like, everyday even. Am I wrong?

But I didn’t want to remain on the urine soaked platform forever, so what did I do?

I did all the things that make me feel good and some that felt uncomfortable too at first.

I went through my very favourite morning routine of writing it out, drinking my tea and being in my space.

I had a smoothie of high-vibrational plant foods.

good vibes

good vibes

I listened to Gina DeVee’s radio show on the bus to work. It’s impossible to be uninspired by her.

I noticed the green green new leaves and the pink blossom tree in full bloom and the beauty of dewy morning spring.

I actually shared with some friends at work about the lost suitcase and this was the part that was uncomfortable because I felt I was supposed to talk about how amazing my holiday was. But this part was the most rewarding as one friend shared her tale of a lost suitcase that had gone AWOL for weeks before being returned. It felt comforting to share.

I enjoyed a coffee after lunch and truly took a break.

M and I joked about how they might have confiscated my bag for closer inspection due to the half kilo box of baking soda I was carrying and what kind of person I was to be doing such things anyway.

I found out I was entitled to a hundred bucks from the airline and then went out after work and spent it on really nice stuff that would make me feel good (and to stop any more students  asking if I was sick because I wasn’t wearing make-up).

I came home and noted down the moments I had appreciated during the day and felt good. This is a time for presence and gratitude. I enjoyed this very much.

Slowly slowly, chipping away at the bad mood. The negative thoughts and drama would still enter my mind like a flash of lightning, cracking open the clarity to reveal a stormy sky behind. But then I would catch it and replace the thought with one positive, hopeful one. I eased up and started to accept and let go.

This is how I got high.

And I’m telling you this because it’s fine to be in a bad mood and to go through all emotions, but to manifest positive things we have to be magnets of high frequency. You may have bigger things going on in your life than a missing bag, but it’s all relative anyway. Sometimes even when all is right we find ourselves down.

But each of us can find out what things get us high and do them regularly – especially when we don’t want to and convince ourselves it won’t work. It’s important to have gratitude, especially in the most trying times. It’s important to have faith, even when there’s “no new information”.

We must also remember that we can’t see the bigger picture. Perhaps something great is about to happen. I’m telling you this because this is what I find hard to remember always.

And just like that, when I had just started to write this blog and was no longer thinking about the bag, the call came.

And then I jumped around the living room.

It’s important to celebrate too.

Yay!

lessons from the edge : New York City

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We are in New York so I will keep this brief.

I am feeling distracted by life. Life is happening. Life is all around, life is walking fast, life has places to be, life is late, but life is still enjoying the sunshine. Life is sitting at a pavement café now and eating organic sweet-pea hommus and quinoa and drinking organic beer from Vermont. Life is going to comedy shows and laughing her ass off, even when it’s not that funny. But life is laughing anyway. Life is taking photos in corner stores, blown away by the abundance of choice. Life is eating gluten free vegan cupcakes, not because she’s gluten intolerant or vegan but just because she can. Life is singing Frank Sinatra and Alicia Keys by the Hudson. Life has dance moves. Life has already drunk two jars of cocktails. Life is feeling like she’s broken her ankle from walking a hundred blocks but life doesn’t care. There’s too much to see. Life is stopping at a market on 8th Avenue and drinking freshly-made lemonade with spoonfuls of white sugar, which is apparently more addictive than cocaine. But life doesn’t get high off this. Life is high on life.

Life has noticed a few things too. Like…

New Yorkers are fit. They walk. And they are comfortable walking around in gym clothes. They have just been to the gym and now they are meeting their friend for lunch, who has also just been at the gym or is going. Leggings are all around lunching. Leggings are walking.

American are good talkers. They talk to strangers. And not just to exchange pleasantries and niceties. They are open and friendly and interested. They tell you where they’ve been and want to help you get where you’re going. They don’t mumble. They speak clearly and audibly.

New Yorkers love their city unconditionally. It is dirty and smelly at times. And? They make jokes on the subway about the subway. ‘It’s the subway’, they say when someone leans into them as the subway lurches out of the station.

Because of this love, New Yorkers are ever ready to help you. They are like volunteer guides at the museum or zoo. They love art. They love animals. They believe in this museum and zoo. They believe in diversity.

But New Yorkers are supposed to be cranky and impatient. In fact, people are so helpful and friendly here that it is totally making our day, lifting us up and having that butterfly affect. Shop assistants, waiters and pedestrians alike – they are all helping us. They are all giving us a hand. They are not pushy or overbearing. They don’t stand too close just close enough.

We can learn a lot from this city and its people. In fact, we have.

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the journey home – part 2

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And on with the manifesting talk she goes!

At the moment I am taking two online courses. One is called The Feminine Art of Manifesting with Rose Cole and Gina DeVee (which is not exclusively for women) and the other is The Abundant Creative with Melissa D’Antoni.

Both of them had recommended reading The Game of Life and How To Play it by the way. Anyway, Melissa D’Antoni recently posted a life-affirming quote from a man called Abraham.

You cannot struggle to joy. Struggle and joy are not on the same channel. You joy your way to joy. You laugh your way to success. It is through your joy that good things come.

This reminds me of how I got my job here. I didn’t want a full-time job because I was going to study German and M had a job already and we had money in the bank so I wasn’t worried about finances. Then bam! I had a job and went against my intuition to take it. But things came so easily – unlike in the past when I was anxious about starting life abroad and finding a job was difficult.

Can you relate to this? When you are relaxed things seem to fall into your lap? Like when you just get into a relationship or when you are not interested, you become super attractive to others like you never were before. You are so content and cool and not giving off that subliminal whiff of desperation. ‘I want what she’s having,’ they think. This is the opposite of having the down and out mind-set and no one giving you a break.

Florence Scovel Shinn teaches that “nothing stands between man and his highest ideals and every desire of his heart, but doubt and fear.” When we can “wish without worrying” all our desires will be fulfilled.

If we are doubting and fearing then we will receive doubt and fear. If we are telling people we are broke or even saying it to ourselves or making jokes about it, then we will remain so. Remember that the subconscious mind is all brawn and no brains. It simply does what it’s told and like a bouncer on the door of a nightclub in Perth, it has no sense of humour.

So the question is – how can we get in the millionaire mind-set when we only have pennies to play with? How can we change our beliefs and manifest our heart’s desires?

My wise friend Florence says,

We must substitute fear for faith. For fear is only inverted faith. It is faith in evil instead of good.

 

Love this lady.

We must have faith in abundance. We must trust that we will be provided for if we reach out to help ourselves.  We must have faith that there is enough for all of us. Perhaps the world as we see it tells us something different but this is exactly the kind of fear-based belief we must choose to change.

And how can we change our perception to have faith in abundance? Firstly, we have to flood our consciousness with our new way of thinking in order to drown out the way we have been programmed or raised to think and what is being advertised all around us.  This means really filling up on the books, videos, talks, blogs, podcasts and courses that support, strengthen and enrich our new consciousness. It also means intentionally being around people who inspire and lift you up. For me this also means following my gurus and thought leaders on Facebook. Their posts lift me up throughout the day. We can choose not to listen to others. This is a choice we can all make.

Doing this work is an ongoing process but it’s fun. It’s not that I am trying to be balloon-popping happy. I seek to feel all emotions more deeply and be more myself. I am choosing to be calm, loving, present, creative, intuitive, generous and free. And as I said, the process is ongoing.

Another way to believe in what’s possible is to act ‘as if’.

You can act as if the thing has already happened. Like in sports psychology, you can physically act as if you have already achieved. This is how Tony Robbins trained Andre Agassi before he won Wimbledon (so I’ve heard from Gina DeVee).  He got him to act as if he had just won – and then got him to repeat it a hundred times.

If that feels a bit of a push, acting as if can also mean being the person you want to be in the future right now. Act as if you are the person who’s lost ten kilos already. How does this affect the decisions you make? Act as if you are already the person who would receive the thing you desire. For example, if you want to manifest something like a business or person in your life, after you get clear on what qualities the manifestation will have, get clear on what person you need to be to have what you desire. And then take steps towards becoming it.

Acting as if also involves feeling good now. If you think about something you desire, really what you are yearning for is the feeling that goes with  it. So identify what the feeling is that you want to feel in getting your heart’s desire and then find a way to feel it.

For me, I want to be a successful published author (have I mentioned this?). Being a published author will allow me to keep writing and get paid and through this I feel free, creative, present and grounded, expansive, tapped in and hooked up to the creative source, with eyes wide-open to see, really see. It also helps me see meaning and to understand and be understood. Plus it’s really fun. Writing this blog gives me these exact things. I get to write and some people even read it and some comment too. I so appreciate you for this. It makes me feel ‘as if’.

The activity that gives you the feelings you desire doesn’t have to be directly linked or logical though– remember to go with your intuition. For example, I went through a stage around age twenty when I used to ride my bike everywhere, acting as if I lived in Europe, feeling as if I was there. I really enjoyed myself.

And that’s the point – doing this other activity also helps you to let go of the outcome.  You enjoy yourself, you relax, and there isn’t anxiety or worry. You joy yourself to joy.

The thing you desire may turn up in another form, so be open.

What I’m telling you here is just the tip of the iceberg.

Go exploring.

Now, getting back to looking for a job – why would I be actively looking for a job as a teacher when I really want to get my pay-checks from writing? Of course I know it is for the financial security, but I suspect this fall-back option is keeping me stuck. Recently I read a post of Mastin Kipp’s from The Daily Love about only having a Plan A. If we have Plan B, then we do not fully believe that Plan A will work out. We must put all our efforts into Plan A without exception.

Of course Florence agrees. She so eloquently says,

Man must prepare for the thing he has asked for, when there isn’t the slightest sign of it in sight.

Wow! This is huge!

So I’m not looking for a job. When I think about June 28th I feel a sense of total freedom. I am driving a Cadillac through the open plains of Arizona with the wind in my hair. Why would I give that up? I am disentangling myself from the vines that have held me back and stepping into new shoes. I’m acting as if something incredible is about to happen.

Okay I wasn’t last week, but I am from today.

Last week I was kind of doing it in theory. Today I am embodying the teachings with born- again vigour.

Last week I was saying things like, “Well, I hope you get to read Wonderlust…one day” chuckle chuckle, act bashful and painfully modest, change the topic.

Today I am saying, “Of course you can read it. Expect a signed copy in your Christmas stocking!”

Why could I not say this before? As an Australian, I am fearful of being a tall poppy, of making huge declarations and ending up eating an egg on face sandwich. There was the fear that it might not work out. I had a Plan B.

So what is faith then and how can we get it? How can we be like an American kid asked to perform on stage at summer camp?

Well, we can take steps in the direction and not give up, even when the dark is at its darkest ( just before the dawn) – and at some time we have to go public with our dreams.

I have found in going public with mine (right here), I have become much more vulnerable but also much more encouraged. It’s easy to keep the dream alive of being a writer when you are just at home doing the work in private. Before, hardly anyone knew of my urge to write. I only showed bits of Wonderlust to a select few when I really trusted they would like it, for fear my confidence would break too easily. It would have. And I am still working on this.

But I am more encouraged now. I collect words of encouragement as if they were precious stones – because they are. Sometimes I will need them as stepping stones, bringing me back to faith. Sometimes they will lead me back home.

So I wanted to say thank you for allowing me to feel this– to people I do and don’t know personally who comment or like or follow or even just read this – to my Dad who always clicks ‘like’ to my link on Facebook – to my Mum too for responding and keeping the dialogue open. To M and the good friends who are always supportive and also the people who take me by surprise and tell me they read my blog and like it. I am so grateful. You help me feel as if.

With words, I am home.

 

the journey home – part 1

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look for the signs

look for the signs

I have found my new bible. The Game of Life and How To Play it. Or maybe it’s not the bible but just a new testament that’s been unearthed, revealed itself, and I am taking the words as the gospel.

As is always the way, this book has come at the perfect time. I’ve quit my job you see and I have no plans of looking for another one. I am keeping the faith. I finish work at the end of June and am then going on a month long holiday to the South of France. I trust there will be opportunities for me on the horizon.

But this goes against other’s beliefs. They want to worry for me because I am not worried.

People want me to look for a job and to make plans to downsize if I don’t find one. But I don’t want to entertain those thoughts – not even for afternoon tea.

You see, I have been studying something for the past ten years called manifesting. It may sound pretty out there but actually has less to do with a stick of incense in a crystal shop, and more to do with the mainstream concept of sports psychology. It is pretty much sports psychology, but can be applied to all facets of our lives.

Perhaps you are familiar with The Secret. I never read the book, but what criticism I’ve heard of it is that it goes too much into the metaphysical side without the practical to build real beliefs. You can go around chanting affirmations for weeks but with only this you may soon lose faith. Affirmations are only one step in manifesting and they are neither the departure point nor the destination.

In sports psychology the athlete puts in thousands of hours of training and then visualises winning and what it would feel like and then still  keeps training, perfecting and improving their technique and getting outside encouragement along the way.  So it is with manifesting your heart’s desires.

Years before I knew about any of this, as a twelve-year-old girl, something totally amazing happened. I had always been quite average at sport but around age eleven I took myself and everyone by surprise by doing really well in the cross country. Maybe I came second out of the girls, so the following year I was determined to win it. I tried hard in the training and at night I went to sleep praying that I’d win and imagining myself at the finish line celebrating and being congratulated. I clearly remember the feeling of elation I experienced as I went to sleep and in the morning walking to the bus-stop lost in these thoughts. Still, I knew my biggest competitor was quite capable of beating me and was ahead in the training but I was asking for a miracle, expecting it even.

On the day of the race, my friend and rival shot off, and perhaps I did doubt my chances then, but half way through she suffered from a crippling stitch and I sailed through to the finish line, the clear winner. Of course, winning like that did detract a little from the glory and so I was again determined to win the 800m on sports day and prove that I really was the long distance champion. Again I prayed for a miracle. Again it was delivered – this time as a burst of energy just before the end of the race which sent me metres ahead of the others. I collapsed once I’d got over the finish line.

All this to say that I believe in miracles and I believe in this formula for success. It is my religion and I am its disciple.

In The Game of Life and How To Play It, Florence Shovel Shinn, explains that the imagination is “the Scissors of the Mind” and is “ever cutting, cutting, day by day, the pictures man sees there and sooner or later he meets his own creations in the outside world.”

Growing up in suburbia is a great for the imagination. I spent a lot of time imagining I was in Europe – and now look!

“To play successfully the game of life, we must train the imaging faculty. A person with an imaging faculty trained to image only good, brings into his life every righteous desire of his heart.”

This really hit home because lately I have been dwelling in the land of negativity (perhaps you’ve noticed) and this was a reminder to “cheer up sister!”

If you let yourself languish in negativity you will never prosper. You have to believe that you can. This reminds me of people who do well in tests. M is one of them. On the day, he shows up with confidence. Why? Because he has been successful before and no matter what the circumstances are, he has faith in himself that he can bring the goods on the day of delivery.

It also reminds me of people who succeed in the field that their parents have. Of course we like to think it’s ‘who you know’ and what not, but I do think there is largely the case of believing that you can. Why? Because you have seen it happen and you know what is possible. There were some guys in high-school who set up businesses straight out of university or even before. They were not at the very top academically but they studied commerce and had that entrepreneurial mind-set.  They had their fathers as role-models and the audacity to try.

stop for drinks along the way

stop for drinks along the way

Ms Shinn explains that there are three departments of the mind. The conscious mind is the “human or carnal mind” that sees the world as it appears to be, with poverty, death, disaster, sickness and limitations. What you see with this mind is imprinted onto the subconscious.

The subconscious is “simply power without direction”. Whatever you feel deeply or see clearly is brought into being by this part of the mind. Shinn gives many examples of this in her book, but this particular point reminded me of how I used to ‘play teacher’ all the time as a kid with the ever accommodating and well-behaved class of my favourite toys. Then as a teenager and young adult there was only one thing I knew for sure – I would not be a teacher. Still, I ended up one.

The third department of the mind is the “realm of perfect ideas”. You may experience a flash across the conscious mind as the perfect picture of your life, yet you see it as “the unattainable ideal”. But in fact it is your true destiny, “flashed… from the infinite intelligence which is within” each one of us.

How can you not love this?

expect miracles

expect miracles

Gina DeVee encourages us to let yourself want what you want and don’t make yourself wrong.

And how can you know what you want? Shinn advises to “follow intuition”. The hunch that you have but can’t explain – this is your inner knowing guiding you home. Home is the place of perfect contentment and peace. If you think you might like to do something, start following the trail. And “never violate a hunch”.

Once you start digging into the material that’s out there, you are pretty much being told the same message in many different forms and each one may resonate in its own way and different teachings will stick at different times.

There is so much more to learn about this than I could possibly express in one blog post (well, I am actually expressing it in most posts and is to be continued) but maybe this is enough to ignite your curiosity or to remind you of something you learned before or just reinforce what you already know and do. Hopefully I do not sound too much like a born-again  in spreading the word but yeah, I am risking looking uncool. Oops!

Anyway, I wish you well on your journey home. Bon voyage mes amies!

Tell me…what do you make of all this?