If you invite a guest to dinner and it turns out to be an unpleasant experience for you, what do you do with them? Perhaps they are negative, draining or rude. You might allow them to remain at your table. Understandably, you might feel it rude or wrong to dismiss them. But, do you let them linger or stay long after dinner? If you are a good co-dependent, you might even feel sorry for them and invite them back, hoping that if they see that you are kind to them, they might transform into a better dinner guest, or maybe even a better person altogether. Does this sound like the way you behave with relationships in your life?

This little story is just an illustration of the way we all handle relationships, be it with family, co-workers, friends or intimate partners. Folks with excellent boundaries do not make time for those who are unpleasant to them. Folks with no boundaries allow people who are unpleasant to remain at their dinner table or in their life, and invite them back for more. Often they do it, feeling that they are helping that person in some way.

We invite  people, sensations, thoughts and experiences into our life every day. You need to consider that these are simply "samples." If you were standing at a buffet and you took a sample of all the offerings, would you feel obligated to eat a full portion of everything, including the things you didn’t like? Of course not. You don’t even need to finish the sample. The sample gives you the ability to try a portion without too much of an investment. If you don’t like it, you dismiss it and move onto something you like better. Samples are meant only to provide initial information that you need to make a decision whether to include something in your life, or not. If you continue to encourage all your samples to remain in your life, what you are saying to the Universe, regardless of your affirmations and goals to the contrary, is that you want more of those same types of people and experiences. And if you’re not happy with those samples, then you’re setting yourself up for a bunch of unhappy experiences! Do you have any long-term relationships in your life, where a casual meet or invitation that should have been dismissed, was not? I did!

I spent time with people who were rude, demeaning and critical. Unfortunately, this mostly occurred at family functions. I stopped doing so many years ago, as I began to treasure my time far too much. My self-respect had grown to a level where I could not tolerate their behavior. And, I really did not like being with people who were so negative, critical and mean-spirited. I gave myself the right to make a choice, even when it came to "family."

Popular thought today is that if you change what’s inside, people will change towards you. For various reasons, this may not be true. It could be that it is time for yout to separate from that individual, or from people like that, and that action, or separation, is the next important step in your progression. Often, the kindest and most empathetic people fall prey to the belief that they need to work on themselves in order to change the behavior of others.The "new age" concept of changing within is simply an extension of that. By the way, that is the hallmark of the abused victim, and abused women in particular–the belief that they need to change to effect change in another.

Even in more casual scenarios, you need to pick and choose with care. Do you go out on date, or with a group of friends, and find you don’t like the company, or the activity they have chosen, and yet you stay until everyone else goes home? If so, you are sacrificing your happiness and well-being for what you perceive is the comfort and satisfaction of others. How many people force themselves to finish a movie that they don’t even enjoy watching, whether in the company of others, or alone? I know a few!

Time is one of the most important gifts you have here. How you choose to spend your time speaks louder than the words you may utter in your affirmations, prayers or requests from the Universe. Spend it wisely!

You may feel that you need to continue on with the experiences, people, sensations, employment and other things that are currently in your life, or you  may feel that you need to complete an experience. If you are still clinging to the movies, or the dinner guests, or family or friends that you do not truly enjoy, then you need to understand that you are not affirming for a new reality. Actions do speak louder than words to the Universe! You need to begin to allow yourself the choice to break off from those experiences. You need to give yourself choice.

Decide what you want to include in your future, and assess what you are allowing to remain in your life right now. Do those things fit in with that future vision? You may have a job you are dissatisfied with and don’t see it in your goal vision, but it may need to remain until you have found another way to support yourself. However, most people keep negative forces in their life for no practical reason at all.

Right here and now, allow yourself the freedom to include what feels good in your life, and begin to exclude what does not feel good. Give yourself the the power of choice. You can begin shaping your future today!

Worry is a pervasive and and needless habit that many of us struggle with. It blocks us from staying positive and therefore keeping a pure vision of what we want. Worry and the accompanying emotion of fear it brings with it interrupts our dreams, keeping us focused on what we do not want, rather than what we do want. Holding onto fear and worry and thinking we can reach the finish line, or our goal vision, is self-defeating. It’s like running a race, and stopping every few feet, running backwards, spinning around, and at last moving forward a few feet again, only to do the same thing all over again. The finish line stays far out of reach. Fear keeps us stuck. What are we to do with it?

Like everything else in our lives, we must take responsibility for it. There was a time in my life when I realized, in reviewing my life, that I was addicted to worry, and I was addicted to problems. I handled them like a champ, but I always got more to deal with! At one time I thought it was a testament to my strength and I felt a certain pride that I had survived what I did, but I began to feel there really was nothing positive to be said for my strength in enduring this onslaught. As I was starting to envision a future that included peace, freedom and happiness, entertaining worrisome thoughts all the time seemed counterproductive. In truth, I had grown weary of the constant legal issues, life issues, and health issues. So, I finally realized I had to take responsibility for all of that, and in taking responsibility, not only did I realize I brought forth those issues, but that I was addicted to the feelings and thoughts that I entertained because of them.

Addicted sounds like a harsh word, but I think it is accurate. When some problem came up, it’s what I thought of nearly 24/7. If I had waking moments without other critical things to take my mind off it, I was mulling the issue over and over, anticipating different outcomes, pondering solutions, and analyzing every bit of it. I was getting quite good at anticipating possible outcomes, and as a result had handled legal situations quite well in the past. But when you are looking to change your reality into a positive and peaceful one, you don’t need detective or legal skills just to handle life!

At first, I continued to resist the idea that worry was really needless, and still tried to find a good rationale for it. I had spent a good deal of my life doing this. Since I had invested so much time in this activity, I suppose I wanted to believe it was a productive thing to do. So I thought about people I knew who didn’t seem to spend time worrying, curious how it impacted their lives. I realized that they seemed blessed with better fortune or experienced far less disruptions. Now, you might reason that is why they don’t worry, but of course, it’s the other way around!

As I was resistant, I didn’t want to not think about the problem–like any other addict, I wanted to continue with my habit! I thought I could continue to ponder whatever dilemma was going on at the time, and simply choose to not feel fear as a result of the thoughts, as I felt it was the fear that was destructive in creating my newly-formed goals. Then, I realized that thinking the problem situation over and over itself was the problem, as it kept me from being focused on positive things as well as my goal reality. I could try real hard not to feel fear when thinking about the circumstances, but that was challenging anyway. Imagine huge debt, loss of income, lengthy divorce proceedings regarding divorce and child custody, health crises, and bankruptcy court. I had all of these and more.

Few, if any, of us were raised in an environment where we were encouraged to spend time focusing on our goal visions and dreams, particularly in the midst of some crisis, so we can’t blame ourselves for doing absolutely what we were taught to do! Now, I am not suggesting you ignore problems that need to be dealt with, but you don’t need to obsess over them. You arrive at a solution and steps to reach the solution, and be done with it. You take one day at a time, stay positive, and keep your vision in mind!

Focusing on worry and present circumstances can also help to create another problem situation on its heels. I realized I had to be willing to let go of the analysis, the thinking, and the addiction to these problems. Although life had already turned around and many of the issues I mentioned above were in the past, suddenly new ones came up. It was then that I realized I was creating them over and over again. It was clear I was addicted to them. I was also addicted to thinking about them. This seemed to be one of the final pieces that I needed to lay in place to progress in my life.

The realization of all of this was a large part of the solution. Remember, awareness is the key to growth. When we see truth about ourselves, we accept it openly. We acknowledge, take responsibility, and then forgive ourselves for the past. And we release it. Just let it go. Choose to release worrisome thoughts, and choose to think about your positive vision. Just say no to negativity! Say no to fear and worry. When the thoughts come up, affirm the following to yourself: "I willingly release these worrisome thoughts. I do not need to think about this situation. I choose to think happy thoughts." A good deal of mental discipline and re-training will be necessary, as you have been accustomed to this obsessive thinking. It is just like the alcoholic reaching for the drink. In your mind, you need only reach for that thought that is hovering close by! Distracting the mind will help. If you can’t keep your mind busy on something else, try singing, or humming. Play Don’t Worry Be Happy, and sing along, or some other song that distracts your mind and keeps you positive. Remember Hakuna Matata from the Lion King? You can sign up for free to listen to these and other songs. This is an exercise in mental re-training, and it’s no small feat, but it can be done. After some time spent on this exercise, and you won’t have to work at it so hard. Do this until negative or worry thinking is no longer a habit.

Remain vigilant of your thoughts! What do you think about in your free moments? If you find that you choose to think about stressful situations in far greater proportion than is needed to resolve the problem, you need to take some steps to re-train your mind before you are able to move forward with creating your vision. Remember, as within, so without. Keep in your mind peaceful, happy, positive and loving thoughts. Look forward with expectation to fulfilling your dreams!

 

 

 

 

 

All my experiences are created from my beliefs

Imagine that you had not been here lifetimes before. Imagine that you are starting off in this world anew. You can reject or accept experiences, at will. Which will you choose?

Unfortunately, that is not the case. If you are reading this article, you are an old soul, perhaps on the precipice of a beautiful new reality. You just seem to be stuck!

Because you have been here before, because you did not reject the negative experiences, and came to view them as "what is," or part of earthly reality, you have embedded those beliefs, lifetime after lifetime. You have a long-term investment at stake, and only you can remove it. They are NOT illusions. Remember, you are a powerful Creator! This world is NOT an illusion. You have made it what it is. For good, for bad!

During this lifetime, we are being forced into conditions which expose our belief systems, for us to release. This has been the case because we are ready to move on. It is like being put through the ringer, or the spin cycle. As we spin around, by laws of physics, all that is not part of our true nature is being shaken off and away. Unfortunately, it is not as easy as that–in this 3-dimensional reality, the set-up is experience to reveal them, acceptance to acknowledge them, and surrender and force of thought to shake them off.

In order to get a view of your belief systems, simply review the life you have chosen. While circumstances may have gotten better (or perhaps even worse), review the themes and patterns and what belief they inspire.

For example:

1. People are unsupportive and uncaring.

2. People are against me. They want to hurt me.

3. If I have money, people will try to take it away.

4. People don’t want me to be successful.

A review of history complete with victimization, abuse and persecution may reveal thoughts such as these. These are extreme, but your lifetime may well exemplify such thoughts as these, as mine did. The net result was that at best I could achieve some level of success, but felt I had to hide it, for fear that it would be taken away. Here’s a few more.

5. Work is hard. It compromises my health.

6. I can’t earn money doing what I love,

In spite of the fact that we recognize others make a living or better doing exactly what they love!

If we review some of the above thoughts in the context of our life experiences, we need to accept that it is a "belief system," and nothing more. Because you feel that it is reality, you will re-create it in some shape or form, over and over. You will not move too far from that reality, although you can certainly better your experience. Affirmations, positive thinking, and other superficial methods can help us to do that, but they don’t change the underlying belief, when it remains unconscious.

But, we are not here to better our experience. We are here to heal it altogether. Perhaps there is a completely new experience waiting for us, that we are completely unaccustomed to. Universal forces and energies are ripe for this NOW.

What you must do is accept it is only a belief in your Mind. Take a thought or belief system and treat it as you would another thought, or opinion, or perspective. Do not judge it’s importance or validity. Deny any conviction in these beliefs. Recognize they are not "what is." They are what you make them to be. It is therefore, not an unshakeable belief, but it becomes moveable. Move it out of your way!

For further example, let’s take some other beliefs regarding health:

7. I am unhealthy. I have always had physical problems.

8. I have a bad back.

9. Life is draining. I am tired all the time.

It doesn’t matter what primary experience caused this thinking to become pervasive. You had an experience of ill health, or pain, and believed in it as truth. It became daily thinking, although perhaps unconscious daily thinking. And now it is a daily reality. The power of your mind is incredible. It is capable of running all your programs, and thus creating a reality from them, all day long, day after day, without you being aware at all that you are creating. It is what you do most naturally, and unconsciously.

Now, to take energy away from the above statements, or your own, try prefacing the statement with a few words: "I think that I believe that …. "

For example:

"I think that I believe that work is hard."

"I think that I believe that life is difficult."

"I think that I believe I am unhealthy."

"I think that I believe that I lack opportunity."

Do you see how much power you removed from the above statements? You shift the energy from conviction  to acknowledging that you merely entertain a thought about a belief. You can then choose to not entertain that thought about such a belief! Be willing to add these words to your own statements. Whether or not right now you can believe that those thoughts can (or should) change, preface each one with "I think that I believe that … " 

So, today you must begin to pay attention to how often you affirm your programs and beliefs, and begin to change them with conscious effort. The Universe is always listening and responding, whether or not you realize what you are asking for!

Are you hoping you can change your life the easy way? If someone offered you a quick fix, perhaps some power mantra, magical chant, a charm you could wear, a release point you could press that would remove all bad luck or inner subconscious issues, or perhaps some yoga position you could assume once a day, would you try it?

We hope for a magic formula, because the longer we remain in a life that doesn’t work for us, the more desperately we seek a quick fix. Unfortunately, there really is no easy fix, but there will always be someone willing to offer one in exchange for money.

In truth, our challenges would go immediately with our surrender. While we cling to our problems with tight fists, we hope that some quick fix will chase them away. We avoid the path of change and growth until the pain becomes too great. Pain precedes change, and eventually drives growth.

Our lives are designed in such a way as to facilitate our spiritual healing, at the expense of our mental, physical, and emotional peace and well-being. This design includes challenges and pain–learning to let go, learning to reach out, learning to love, learning to forgive–and through it all, becoming greater, and so much more than we had been before. Our only real purpose is growth.

Our soul’s growth is primary. We don’t want to hear this. Modern-day societal expectations don’t mesh with a concept that implies we must endure some pain and spend time and attention on ourselves doing spiritual work.

Spiritual healing presents an unchangeable course. It has not responded to our demands of an instant fix. A loving and unprejudiced creative energy moves us toward wholeness, via our own growth, whether we like it or not. Because we are spiritual beings having a human experience, and not simply bodies having a life, we must tend to the needs of spirit.

If we knew how to manage life from the outset, change and growth would be so much easier. In a society more sensitive to our spiritual needs, perhaps mandatory early reading would include a guidebook for living an abundant and healthy life. We now know that the map for success lies within our own thinking and belief systems, which develops at an early age.

“What the mind can conceive and believe it can achieve.”

The contents in our mind determine our health, our life circumstances, how well we function, and our emotional well-being. But, when you consider that major medical insurers would not cover mental health therapy until late in the last century, you can see how slow progress has been in appreciating this important concept.

The idea that thoughts, belief systems and feelings affected our life, was neglected. Those seeking therapy or emotional healing were labeled weak, needy, or thought to require too much attention. Now we know that attending to mental health needs is more than a privilege. Forgotten memories are not forgotten problems; we know that traumatic events, especially those repressed, and even those that occur at too young an age to remain in conscious memory, have great impact on the quality of our lives. They impact our relationships, our productivity, our health, and our level of happiness. We now know, as of the 21st century, the importance of what occurs on the mental plane. We still have much to learn.

The spiritually-aware have a greater advantage. The spiritual seeker accounts for what happens at the soul level, as well as on an energy level. This expands and facilitates our ability to heal. We have many tools available to us in our healing work, as opposed to standard counseling. 

In alternative/spiritual healing, we might discover some pre-birth or other lifetime issue to be a block. Does standard therapy help this? There are methods that can help us when we hit a stick-point in our work. When we have committed to the spiritual path and surrendered to our growth, we will always be led to the next step in our progression. We must let go of the blocks, the people, the beliefs, or lifestyle, that keep us rooted in unhappiness. When some thought pattern remains, we can consider that a healer working on the right level can help us progress.

A painful condition or life experience has led to miraculous healing for many. Extreme emotional pain–either caused by life circumstances or threat of a painful or fatal physical illness–was the common thread. Does a shift require extreme pain? I don’t think so, but for most people, pain does seem to be the impetus to growth. Some of us need harder knocks to break through our excuses, rationalizations, and the hugely defensive ego. Perhaps some of us ignored the pain till it became so great that it erupted in a huge tidal wave.

If you would like to learn some healing method or try some system or process that someone has developed from his/her own healing journey, remember that each person’s journey is individualized. Do not rely upon it as the answer for you, or consider yourself a failure if that method does not succeed for you. Take what you learn and modify it to your own needs. Develop the inner guidance you need to follow through on your path.

Life presents no challenge for which you do not also have the inner knowledge to overcome. And each and every challenge is a gift that ultimately leads to freedom and joy.

Law of attraction has great power in attracting that which we want, but unfortunately, it also draws conditions that we do not want. Our ability to create the life that we want hinges on the thoughts, beliefs, and programs we harbor, consciously or subconsciously. The deeper, subconscious thought patterns that are the product of our earliest learning tend to be the thoughts that most draw our life experiences to us. These programs present an obstruction to our goals. We can’t hope to use law of attraction in a productive and positive way with the same faulty thought systems. 

In much the same way that a computer program produces a predictable result when it runs, you will find that your subconscious programs do so as well. If you review your history, you might notice that themes, whether positive or negative, had a tendency to repeat. Although the circumstances changed over time, you had a sense of familiarity, or déjà vu, each time. These patterns may have revolved around health conditions or physical ailments, in career or work-related issues, in finances, or in relationships. You might see addictions repeat, although the substance, food, or type may change.

Have you chosen romantic partners that were similar to previous partners, even if they did not at first appear that way? If abuse, jealousy, lack of support, infidelity, emotional absence or other behaviors repeat, there is a pattern. If you find health issues throughout your life that produced a similar emotional or life difficulty, or re-occuring financial problems, that is a pattern. If feelings of depression, hopelessness, or anxiety re-occur, that is a pattern. A destructive belief system underlies each of these patterns, whether they are circumstances, people that you attract, or feelings.

Once you have pinpointed patterns, you can get a sense of  the programs that run your life. These thoughts fuel law of attraction to invite negative people and situations into your life, and they drive your conscious thinking patterns, causing you to make choices to include them. Healing will eliminate these belief systems, and then the conditions. 

Growth requires acute awareness of our intentions, motivations, and actions. To achieve success, you must look inside yourself with awareness and responsibility. When you face the inner demons, they become real. However, the problems they cause diminish, simply by acceptance and recognition. Since you created them, only you can let them go. As with so much of our lives, it comes down to choice.

Imagine the peace and serenity you will feel when you no longer hold onto anxieties and fears that block you in life. Know that the path to freedom and joy waits beyond each and every perceived roadblock.

Many people seeking spiritual growth or personal development have a basic desire for freedom. This desire often serves as a driving need for change. Inner freedom allows us to pursue our dreams and goals without interference or limit. The constraints in our mind keep us where we are in life, and prevent us from creating or allowing external change. This is really the only limit we really need lifted in order to achieve personal success and happiness.

We all define freedom in different ways. Although we may feel that having financial abundance would provide real freedom, we’ve all seen examples of wealthy people trapped by their own addictions, fears, or negative thinking. We can probably agree that while they have achieved financial independence, they do not have inner peace and true freedom. So freedom is an inner state of mind, as well as an external condition.

Negative and fearful thinking puts in place boundaries that imprison us. For an extreme example to prove a point, imagine that you had all the money in the world. And obviously, with a huge bank account, you could do whatever you desired, including travel to beautiful and exotic places. But what if you feared travel? Imagine being terrified to leave your home. Agoraphobics face that fear daily. An unfree mind imposes numerous conditions and limits.

Any unhappy circumstances you find yourself in results from your thinking. If you have any fears or self-doubt, they hold you back from the life you want. For example, if you fear intimacy and love, you will not find true joy in a loving relationship. You will likely choose the path or person that doesn’t challenge your fear. If you fear for your personal safety, you will not want to travel or go out comfortably into the world and enjoy the activities that you might otherwise desire. If you have fears about your own competence and value, you will not move into the career that you want, be with the mate that you want, and not feel valuable enough to get what you deserve. You will hesitate to move toward goals out of fear of failure. While anger is truly a self-defeating emotion to hold onto, fear is by far, the reason most people live out their lives in a dissatisfying way.

Fears not only hold us back from our heart’s desires, but they have the power to attract negative conditions that validate the belief systems that cause those fears. If you fear intimacy out of a belief that you will be hurt by infidelity, you may draw that very situation to you. If you believe that the world is an unsafe place, you may manifest conditions that validate that thought. We can’t predict the outcome to the negative thoughts that we harbor. Our lives are designed in such a way that we are often given just what we can handle, and no more, that will push us through restrictions and free us to love more, be more, and live more.

Understand that most of your fears are not valid. They do not keep you safe, they only hold you back. We know perfectly well when a fear is reasonable, and when it is not. Begin now to "feel the fear and do it anyway." With intelligent discernment, make choices that are not dictated by your fears. If you want something, move towards it, and don’t listen to the negative internal voices. As you consciously work to overcome these fears, you will eliminate them.  Ignore them, and they will persist.

As the repressed unconscious thoughts heal, we come to enjoy a new state of being without the anxiety, fear, anger and negativity that once ruled our choices and actions. This is an attainable goal, and ultimately what you will find on your journey of growth.

We need to achieve on an inner level first what we hope to find in the outer world. So while we work on manifesting the outer condition of financial freedom, and other abundant conditions, we need to free ourselves of every condition which detracts from our internal sense of freedom. This only requires a willingness on our part to release negative thoughts of self-criticism and undervalued self-worth, as well as those judgmental beliefs that we often feel self-righteous about.

While you feel that your belief systems are infallible and universal truths, they are only judgments that you have come to accept as truth. They may be judgments about what people are, what marriage is, what life is, what government is, how fair the judicial system, who you are, and so forth. Many of your beliefs are counterproductive to creating the desirable conditions that you want. You need to begin to eliminate all those beliefs to which you have attached some negative judgment, regardless of what you perceive as truth. Persisting in negative beliefs will only create undesirable conditions that validate those beliefs. If you want to shape a new and different reality, you need to believe in a different reality. Sometimes we feel that we are willing to believe a different truth if we see or experience it, but it’s almost always true that we first need to believe it before we will see it. The principles of law of attraction tell us that is precisely what we must do.

Remember that thoughts within the mind have a magnetic pull that attracts like objects or situations in the external world. The Creative Mind offers no room for rationalizations, excuses or disclaimers. In the infinite and diverse universe that we live in, there is no universal truth for all people. Each and every individual has an entirely different reality.

Know that joy, freedom and love is out there and available to all, not only a select few. Believe that it is your right and destiny, and commit to achieving it.

A necessary first step in learning how to use the law of attraction to your advantage is to recognize your responsibility in creating your life so far. As you become more fully aware to what degree you shaped your life through past actions and choices, you see that you have control over much of your life experience. When you consciously acknowledge control, you empower change. On the conscious level, you begin to monitor and choose thoughts as well as actions that best serve you. Through the force of law of attraction, these thoughts will manifest positive results and opportunities that will validate the real power of law of attraction.

If you believe that luck, karma, coincidence and chance have created your life, you reduce or remove your power to effect positive change as well as your motivation to do so in any committed way. Recognizing how you’ve shaped your life through your own choices and actions forces you to see how powerful choice really is. You begin to see how often you chose a course, whether or not you realized you had. You need to stop and review your life up to now with an honest and open attitude to recognize just how much influence you have had in shaping your life.

When you arm yourself with this awareness, you begin to see opportunity for choice where previously you did not. You begin to use discernment and guidance to make wiser choices and to take positive action that will move you toward your goals. In this way, you cooperate with universal law to effect productive change.

Your subconscious lays the foundation for a spectrum of choices and conditions. Then your conscious mind, operating within that framework, directed your actions, which brought you your job, your home, and the people with whom you surround yourself. You may have had negative thoughts regarding some of these possible choices, and yet, you still decided, through your own individualized thought process, to take the action that brought about the results you see. Different actions would have produced different results. So we see people from similar backgrounds, even from the same family, achieve widely different results, simply as a result of making different choices.

Mental activity, or thought, on both the conscious and unconscious levels, fuel action. For example, before you took your job, you thought of applying for it. Those thoughts then caused you to act to acquire the job. Your subconscious, or unconscious thoughts, also played a hand in your decision to act. These programs or belief systems instilled long ago fueled thoughts regarding the type of work or career you should choose, the level of income that you receive for your work or where your talents lie that would provide you with income. Consciously you may not agree with that belief system, wanting instead to earn a larger income or choose a different profession, but as long as your core beliefs remain untouched in the subconscious, they have huge influence in your life on many levels.

If you are married, you accepted a marriage proposal or gave it. You consented by spoken word, and took action when you walked down the aisle. Regardless of how much thought you put into it, and admittedly, few people put as much thought into it as they should, you expended mental energy and focused on the result, which caused you to take action. At the same time, your subconscious mind provided material for your conscious thinking, by supplying the thought systems regarding love, marriage, and what type of mate attracted you. You might even have had conscious objections to your current mate, or you might have received instinctive guidance that you did not honor. You were driven by the thoughts contained in your subconscious.

Belief systems, programs and patterns within the subconscious fuel thoughts. Thoughts fuel choices. Choices drive action.

But, the content in your mind becomes critical when you factor in law of attraction, which states that thoughts attract matching events in the outer world. So, all of your thoughts have creative potential, even the ones that don’t give rise to choice or action on your part. Negative beliefs within the subconscious serve to oppose conscious goals, and also, in and of themselves, have the power to create undesirable conditions simply by attracting them. So these subconscious thoughts have much more power than your positive conscious intentions. This is a key point to understanding why you see the results before you.

The subconscious has a very powerful role in creating your life. It serves as judge and jury on every desire that you want to deliberately manifest. Any intentions or thoughts that the subconscious finds to be untrue by virtue of prior learning will simply not manifest. Second, the subconscious forms a basis for your natural conscious thought patterns and choices. You feel comfortable staying within the boundaries the subconscious sets. Your conscious mind can learn to, and should, dismiss any limited or negative thinking that the subconscious, trained by a lifetime of experiences, will want to impose.

Underlying negativity affects your well-being, restricts your freedom of choice, attracts undesirable events, and limits the opportunities that are drawn to you. When you release these negative beliefs and programs, you become empowered to create a positive and healthy reality.

Set your goals and visions in place and act on them. The universe provides opportunity. It is your choices and actions that set events in motion. By working with law of attraction, you will effectively learn how to increase the positive opportunities that come to you and eliminate or reduce unwanted experiences. Evaluate the choices and actions you make on a daily basis. If they contradict your intentions and desires, you need to commit to your own goals. Remain mindful of your thoughts and the tone of your mental environment, and if there are thoughts out of alignment with your vision, dismiss them. Through repetition of positive affirmations and beliefs, you change negative mental habit. Focus and have faith in your vision and support your goals in every way.

Success comes to those willing to commit with unwavering persistence. Committing to change first requires an open and willing attitude. You’ll find yourself tested with challenges that require you to develop tremendous inner courage. Ultimately you hope to see outer success as a result of the inner work you have done, but it usually takes some time. This will require you to develop the patience of a champion.

Unfortunately, while people may decide they want change, they rarely want to do the work for the time required to see tangible results. Understandably, they often get impatient to see change on any level, whether in regard to physical healing, mental healing, or life healing. While it has taken an entire lifetime to create what we see in the form of our financial condition, relationships, health, and general happiness overall, we may irrationally want instantaneous results. We tend to lose focus and move onto something else that offers a quicker return. There really is no easier or quicker way than inner healing work. That is ultimately the only way.

If you are going through a divorce that is causing financial and emotional difficulties, you need to look at it from the perspective that a bad situation is moving out. It is a situation undergoing the process of change. You may have traded what appears like one bad situation for another, but in reality, you are working towards an improvement. You have to view any negative circumstances in that way, when you are actively working on improvement.

Many people often neglect to realistically assess their starting place when working towards goals of self-improvement. If you have heard about the "illusion" of time, forget it now. If you have heard that it only takes the universe "one second," forget that one, too. It’s a whole lot more fun to contemplate change when we think it might take a second, but it’s unrealistic, given our starting point, to transform negative conditions in a second, in a week, month, or possibly even a year or more! Understand the necessity of cultivating the art of patience.

Do not allow your current situation to weigh upon you. It will pass. You may look at this and say, "How can I feel positive with this going on around me?" or "How can I feel healthy when I am sick?" Optimism becomes part of the healing process. Not only must you believe that the situation will pass, you must believe that it will ultimately produce the best possible results. The current situation is a part of yesterday. At some point, it will merely be history. Then, you can forget it entirely. For today, plod through with courage, and do not focus on negativity, as bleak as circumstances may seem. Focusing on the negative will encourage negative conditions to remain. Use the momentum of change to swing to the positive as you focus on positive change at all times.

People seem more willing to put time and energy into areas that do not hold as great a promise to transform their lives. Perhaps the pain of looking within serves as the impetus for seeking outer distractions and material possessions. But at the end of the day, no amount of money or stuff can substitute for inner peace and happiness. While you may at times feel overwhelmed by the inner work required to change your thoughts or habits, know that the longer you put off the necessary inner work, the more ingrained and habitual the patterns become. The best you can hope to achieve, lacking real change, is tolerant complacency to your own dissatisfaction. Eventually you will find that change is an inside job.

You will not find any better system to change your life. There is nothing more worthwhile than committing to your own growth. You can effect powerful change in your life right now with your growing awareness. It’s reasonable to want change to motivate you to keep moving forward, and this will happen. With the internal changes, your perspective will change. You will change. And then life will transform.

If we harbor negative thoughts, either consciously or subconsciously, we cannot use law of attraction to manifest desirable conditions in our lives. Negative beliefs also affect our abilities to make clear and productive choices, to set positive goals and certainly to achieve these goals. They affect our beliefs in our own abilities and skills, the way we view the world, and what we believe life holds for us. We can cross our fingers and make a wish, but our intentions will remain outside the realm of possibility as long as our beliefs limit us.

For the sake of simplicity, let’s say birth is the beginning. At that time, you began to learn and form core concepts for how you would view and deal with the world, by gathering information from experiences, environment and conversations. As the needs of an infant are, at first, the very center of its existence, whether or not those needs are answered in a balanced way begins to teach optimistic, or pessimistic, expectation. Whether or not desire and effort are rewarded with "manifestation," or futility determines their expectancy of future gratification. Were your needs met in a healthy and balanced way? 

As you grow and develop, life experiences serve to further instill that early learning. Do you have expectations of success? Or do you find that you give up on your goals or resolutions before succeeding, certain that you will fail? Can you find a theme, or pattern, running through your life that might suggest some deep, and very early learning of futility, hopelessness, or powerlessness? Perhaps over time, your parents or other authority figures told you that you wanted too much, were too demanding, or dreamed too much, perhaps to compensate for their own inability to provide what you needed or wanted.

You later relegated the learned early knowledge to the subconscious to free the conscious mind for new skills and ideas. What you learned at six months, at one year, three years and so on, was no longer recognized as acquired knowledge. Those thoughts became automated. You don’t need to stop and think, you just know. This habitual thinking serves as our default thinking on a conscious level. Subconsciously, negative programs developed that direct thoughts, perspectives, choices, actions, and interactions with others. Essentially, this forms our rule book for life on this planet, totally unique to each of us. While life is a continuum of learning, you can instill positive and effective programs that can counter any negative beliefs you learned .

All of your experiences, starting at birth, set an undercurrent in your mind, regardless of what you believed you consciously desired as an adult. Your subconscious mind had installed core programs that either provided unlimited access to the world, or a small box that you kept banging your head on when you jumped too high. Too many of us feel the lid of a very small box! When, later in life, we chose our attitudes, beliefs and thought processes, we often chose those with which we felt most comfortable. Unfortunately, in this case, comfort due to old familiarity led to the same small box. Choice remains a powerful tool that requires wise and careful use. You chose the thoughts on which you focused. Choice allows you to change that, now!

While we may combat negativity by re-learning, people rarely put in the conscious effort to change themselves so completely. They have created a strong identity and spent a lifetime validating those beliefs through experience. We like validation and we’ll take it any way we can get it. This applies to negative, as well as positive experience. You probably know of people who relive their negative experiences by sharing them with anyone who will listen. Why would people choose to re-experience an event that caused them pain the first time? They provide validation to themselves, and seek validation from others. With each person they tell the story, they say "see I was right." If the person confirms that idea, all the better! We all do this. And there’s a time and place for it–in the wake of some events, we need confirmation and support. We need to feel that people care, sympathize, and understand our perspective. But if we would work toward a new perspective based on new judgments and beliefs, we would then see life circumstances differently, and begin to experience a new reality. You must consider the possibility that you have been wrong–about men or women, about bosses or employees, about money, the government, the system, love, others and/or yourself.

Through the process of self-healing, buried subconscious programs will rise to the conscious level. These beliefs and thoughts will often be uncomfortable. Strive for honesty with yourself. Everyone has their own "junk," whether irrational or ugly. Simply allowing that junk into your conscious mind begins the healing process. With your full acceptance, forgiveness, and non-judgment, these thoughts release. Each time you recognize some underlying issue that corresponds with your experience and acknowledge responsibility in creating it, you further the ongoing process of revelation and healing.

You can see how the two levels of creation, both active choice/action and passive law of attraction, interplay in creating every life situation. The process of healing reshapes yor thinking, and then your life. Begin to ignore your default thought patterns, until positive thinking and productive choice-making becomes habitual. As you attract new and more positive experiences through law of attraction, opportunities for success will present themselves. You will learn to seize the options that are most productive. You will form new relationships that support your goals. When all your actions are congruent with the goals and visions you have set in place, you will be unstoppable!

If you let go of those core and limiting programs you learned from day one, and the experiences that validated those beliefs, you will experience transformation. It is NEVER too late to let go of negativity and false beliefs, and that is all that stands in the way of the life you want.

The choices and actions that we make every day often contradict the intentions we hope to manifest. If you work with law of attraction, you’re probably accustomed to working with vizualization and affirmations. But you need to ensure that choices, behavior, and actions also support your intentions. If I participate in needless hostile or negative situations, I contradict my intentions for harmony, peace and freedom. By refusing to engage in situations where I might have experienced a reaction at one time, I support my affirmations through my choices and actions.

Let’s take a common example, and I’ll try to expand on it to show ways that we contradict our intentions. As you read, I hope you can relate other situations.

When you are in traffic, do you allow the car in front of you, containing some anonymous driver you will never see again, to come between you and your inner peace? Do you exert any thought or energy aimed toward their driving skills or about their lack of thoughtfulness, intelligence, or sanity?

When even minor irritating situations such as this arises, you may go into an instinctive and automatic emotional reaction. The more thought, attention and focus you put into it, the more energy you send senselessly in that direction. You place importance on what should be an insignificant incident by virtue of the amount of energy expended in thought and emotion. Either eliminate the underlying thought that caused your reaction, or simply remove the habit. Habit can be changed, and the thought can be eliminated. Then, events like this will cease to bother you.

The law of attraction states that it will bring to you objects or events upon which you focus. The more focus and energy you put into those thoughts, or intentions, the stronger the force. So, in this scenario, you would have sent a lot of energy into the Universe, requesting similar hostile situations to occur.

Here’s what you’re saying to the Creative Force in the previous example: "I like strife in my life. It is very important to me how people such as this think, behave, and drive. I focus on this, because it is important to me. I’ll think about it while it’s happening, and it’s so important, I’ll continue to think about it for a few more hours. I will talk to other people about it. I might even want to memorialize this event and put it in a journal! Give me more people like this to think about."

Is that where you want to place your focus? Free will exists in this great diversity on the planet, and there will always be inconsiderate drivers, and inconsiderate people in general. That driver has the right to act as they choose, and you can choose to what extent you include them in your life through your focus. Let them pass through for a few minutes, and then be gone. Do not give them power to disturb your inner peace or take any precious thought or energy.

When unimportant or undesirable people or situations appear in your life, you can simply choose to dismiss them. When you obsess, you have decided to include them as a significant part of your life. Simply observe and dismiss.

If you frequently react in such situations, you need to ask the following question: "Am I going to let you [whoever your block or irritant] come between me and my freedom, peace or growth?" In that moment, it should be clear that you have the ability to make a choice about what your reaction will be. You may find that making the choice to reject your reaction is difficult, but only because you have developed habit. Over time, this practice will give you control of your thoughts, emotional reactions, and even adverse physical reactions. The first step is recognition that you have choice. It may surprise you to know that these changes are not only possible, they are certain to happen if you stick with this work. And in the future, events such as this will not bother you. Make the choice, and own the choice. A cumulative effect occurs when you take control of your life events and choices. The more you exercise your strength and will, the greater control you will have over each event and reaction, every single time.

You may feel that you would not want a situation like this to disturb you if you had choice. But when it occurs, ask yourself this question: "Am I willing to let go of this reaction, right now? Can I allow this person to cut me off, beep at me, give me the finger, without a judgment on my part?"

You might just find that you feel justified in your reaction, and that you LIKE your reaction. You feel entitled to it. Perhaps you even feel they deserve it. People often make the mistake of engaging unnecessarily in hostile encounters, believing that they are defending their boundaries. These same people often fail to protect themselves when a situation truly calls for it.

If you follow the above process, and find that you feel justified or simply like your reaction, you have become aware that you are making a choice each and every single time you react.  Fear, anger, rage, rejection, hate, or any negative emotion you feel in response to an event or person can be turned off by your own request. Since you allow it, you can disallow it. Like knowledge of all choice, this is empowering!

At some point you learned that you needed to judge people who crossed your path. Rather than dismissing people or events that should be unimportant to you, you give them significance by your focus. When you judge people and focus on them, you include them more in your reality. "Give me more of these people. I like judgment, and I want people I can judge." So the Universe complies. It always does!

Once you’ve made the choice to dismiss or reject your emotional reactions and your judgments, inconsequential people and events will cease to be an issue for you. You will learn to focus only on circumstances and people that you desire to include in your reality. Then, the Universe will stop presenting these unwanted situations. The rare person who crosses your path will be observed, and dismissed.

Here’s the alternative. If you want to include them in your life, continue to judge their driving, their lifestyle, their relationships, the way they look, their religion, their hair color, and the food they eat. When you do that, you give them importance. If doing so enhances your life in any way, promotes your growth and intelligence, or brings love and prosperity, then it’s certainly worthwhile. Otherwise, notice that you would be contradicting any request or prayer you have made for more positive experiences.

And you should ask yourself why you continue to exert precious energy on these experiences. What do you get out of it? There has to be a payoff somewhere, or you would not do it. Does it provide justification that your belief systems are correct? If you find a persistent belief underlying your emotional reaction, you need to examine, and be willing to dismiss that thought, whether it pertains to bad drivers, ignorant women, callous men, inconsiderate bosses, or an uncaring government. And as much as you feel justified in that belief, you have to ask whether being right is more important than creating something different. Remember that the principles of law of attraction tell us that our thoughts will draw matching circumstances. So these underlying beliefs we hold onto will cause these very events, over and over, until we are willing to change, or let go of, these beliefs.

In some cases, people simply operate on autopilot. They feel their emotional reactions and judgments are normal and expected, and don’t question them. They may not like those encounters, but don’t know any other way of handling life situations, big or little.

Know that while your goals may be of a more positive, loving and peaceful nature, your own beliefs, actions and focus will continue to bring undesirable events to you, serving to oppose your positive intentions. Action conveys your serious intent to the Universe, not a few stated affirmations. So what are you really asking for? You may be keeping your desires from manifesting.

When you put energy and emotion into situations that you do not desire to include in your future vision, you also waste creative energy and power. As you put emotion behind the words and thoughts, you add power to them. Emotions take thought and roll it into force. Thought is a spark of electricity. Emotion behind it is a bolt of lightning. Use your power of emotion wisely. Put it where it matters. When you want to make clear intention to the universe, use thought, word and emotion to back it up. Learn to follow through with choice and action on each of your goals of intention.