Focus is a skill!

I used to think that subliminal messages were mostly bad.  I would watch television or read certain types of literature and find them all the time.  All I could see were "warning" and "statistical" messages that all seemed to be designed to control who we can become.  However, when I started to look for good messages, I found that they were just as abundant, if not more plentiful.

I had to focus on finding good messages though, in order to do it.  Before long it became super easy to do, so I focused on doing other things.  That work has led me to the point where I am able to write this message,  for you and for myself; on a sunny Monday morning, living a life that I love.  Earlier this morning, I thought about what it took to get me to this point.  I realized that my focus has gotten much better in the last few years that I have been on my life journey.  There are different levels of focus.  If you are conscious of your level of focus often, then you can feel the difference between being at the level when you can find a needle in a haystack, and the level that it takes to drink a glass of water.

Because we can practice using the levels of intensity of focus, it is indeed a learned skill.  The problem with many of us is that we won't consciously practice it.  Intensity of focus is what builds great cities and produces  great artists.  It's what pushes us forward into the future.  What we focus on is the determinant for if and how we will arrive in the future.  And if you focus hard enough, you can see that the future is always now. It would also be good to remember that all focus on something produces something, now or later.  If you skillfully use your focus to project evil, then surely you will see it.  If you use skilled focus to produce good, it will show itself as well.  So in this moment, now...start to practice on your skill of focus.  See what effects practicing it and using it skillfully can have on your life.

Riding in a Whirlwinds!

Have you ever experienced a whirlwind?  That great gush of wind comes along and carries you off balance for just a bit?  As it meets you, it brings along leaves that found their place on the ground underneath their home trees, and maybe a small scrap of paper that someone lost along their way. 

On a hot summer day, the whirlwind's breeze is a welcome treat!  It cools you off and brings a smile to your face, as you enjoy the sudden coolness, as it squeezes your face, which was crackling from the heat.  The people who were inside, miss nature's attempt to bring them the simple joy of a summer's day wind.  Those who don't have modernized cooling mechanisms to keep them airy, must settle more rudimentary methods to bring their skin the breeze it needs to settle down.

Imagine the breezes of life as being the same as nature's world wind.  Swift and cool...Blowing through with the opportunity of a life time. Blessings that have been hidden sometimes- wrapped in the debris that the gush has accumulated on its travels.  When it passes by you, the whirlwind swoops you up too.  And a magnetic object passes by you.  You grab hold to it and land where it lands.  As you remove the dust from the object, you realize that the ball like object is your potential.  It has a place for a lock, but the area is broken and the lock is missing.  Once you open it, you realized that it has inside a seed of opportunity- that is waiting for you to nourish it until its reality.

I found my seed of opportunity this same way, you know.  I nourished it, and loved it.  Labored for it, with no complaint.  That seed has grown into God's greatest gift for me.  Its brought more to me than I ever would have had, if I had not looked for it in the whirlwind that picked me up! 

The Beauty of Change

It seems that the older we get, the more resistant to change we become.  When we are children, we adapt more easily to it because we are almost always focused on the positive things that can come about as a result of change.  As we grow older, our experiences make us more cautious, and less likely to embrace change.  While change is a scary thing for many, it can be a beautiful thing.  In fact, change is inevitable in nature, and we are in awe of its beauty (most of the time)!

In fact, change must occur in the world's ecological system to renew it.  Fall comes in late September each year, and turns the leaves red, yellow, orange, and brown.  Those leaves eventually fall to the earth, leaving many tree branches barren of their typical beauty, and will even make the most manicured yards look amazingly different during this time.  This change carries on through winter and then into spring, where we see the budding of green leaves on those same trees, which make their way to the surface to restore them to their previous glory.  Life is much more evident in nature during the summer, as we see more wildlife come out from hibernation and scamper about as if they are reveling in the change of the landscape. 

Change is important to life in order to live it to its fullest.  We will make mistakes, some of them can bring about major setbacks.  But by pushing forward to help bring about change that is good, will always be successful, if people band together for that good.  Life without change would be dull and not worth living....so don't be afraid of it.  Embrace it!

The impossible is always possible!

In recent weeks, I have been hit more times than I care to remember with challenges that seemed impossible.        And just when I thought I had made it over one hurdle, a bigger one would seem to appear almost instantly.  These hurdles being so close together was making it difficult for me to get a grip on what I needed to do, and   in some instances being afraid that I wouldn't finish the race, I found myself just jumping, without proper form and with inadequate speed.

Getting tired and frustrated with my performance, I realized that the race had kind of knocked me off my A-game for a moment.  I wasn't thinking clearly and thoroughly.  I decided to step onto the sidelines and regroup.  I also practiced my jumps, took care to improve my stride, and today I am jumping hurdles as if I was Jackie Joyner-Kersee who earned a plethora of gold medals for hurdling in they Olympics!  It feels good to be a winner....to be successful...to be loved and revered by many.  But none of that can happen until we start to believe that the impossible is always possible.

We have so many examples in our world of this today.  For example, we have airplanes, big and small flying all around us, when people thought in the past that it could never happen.  Technology has improved so much that we no longer have to go to the mailbox to get a letter, we can receive it instantly via email. It took for one person to believe that these things could be accomplished, and to work with the right people to bring it to fruition.  So remove the word impossible from your vocabulary.  Remember no thought of action comes to our minds without the possibility of completing the action.  If you take that with you, everywhere you go, the impossible does in fact become it's opposite!

Imagination always overpowers the will

This past weekend I read a very interesting little book that explained the term autosuggestion and how we use it in our daily lives, either consciously or unconsciously.  The book also explained how when we use it unconsciously, it normally has a negative effect on our lives.  I thought about this concept for a moment.  I do believe in the the idea of autosuggestion, and have employed the skills necessary to make it work for me in several areas.  I found it to be a very positive experience.  But this particular book made the suggestion that the imagination always overpowers the will.  It gave very explicit examples that could prove it to be true.  So I tested this theory with my daughter, using one of the examples from the document.

I went outside and grabbed a 2x4 from my storage room.  The board was just big enough for her feet to navigate across, one in front of the other.  I layed the plank on the ground and asked her to walk across it.  She did so with ease, never hesitating.  She was successful, each and every single time that she took the walk (a total of 10 times).  Next, I rested each end of the board on the seats of two chairs.  This raised the board about three feet off the ground.  I asked my daughter to step up and complete the walk. She immediately told me that she couldn't walk across the board and did not attempt it at first.

When I asked her about her reservation, she explained to me that she was not coordinated enough to walk the board in a tight rope fashion, and that she knew she would fall.  I told her to try for me anyway and she did.  She fell almost immediately.  Afterward she says to me, "See mom, I told you that I couldn't do it."  And asked her why she felt that way- to which she responded, "Well mom I am afraid of falling from a big building- I don't like heights!"  She continued to tell me that she couldn't look down out of windows when she had to be in tall buildings. 

I explained to her that she wasn't in a tall building, but a mere three feet off the gorund.  I explained to her that if she felt herself feeling as if she were going to fall, she could turn it into an opportunity to jump off the board and land on her feet, since the ground was so close...and that she could even look down to reassure herself.  I asked her to reattempt her walk, and of course, for her mom she obliged.  She mounted herself on the board very slowly.  She raised her arms to shoulder length on either side of her body, and slowly moved across the plank.  She had accomplished the feat!  She was very happy herself as well that she had done it and proceeded to move a little faster across the board to reach the end on which I was standing.  She tried several more times going steadily a little faster each time until she had marched back and forth across the board 12 times!

In my daughter's mind, she could always walk the plank when it was on the floor- as there was really no danger in her mind of getting hurt.  Afterall, she is used to walking on the floor and the plank had nowhere to fall to, as it was positioned on the floor.  But in order to get across the same plank while it was positioned on the seats of two chairs took some effort.  She had to imagine and suggest to herself that she could jump 3 feet to the ground if for some reason the plank gave way to the possibility of her crashing. 

This is the same for everyone else too.  We like to take big rides at amusement parts so that we can feel the rush (and the fear) that goes along with soaring up high in the sky and extremely rapid speeds.  Some of us can do this because we imagine that the operators of these rides know what to do to keep us safe.  The same is the case with airplanes.  Because we imagine them to be safe, our will is allowed to push us towards getting on the ride or inside the plane.  When we imagine that something could potentially be dangerous (even when it seems like fun), the image of danger overpowers the will, and many of us forego the fun in order to be safe.  When we don't take good chances on ourselves for fear of the unknown, while it could keep us safe, we could also miss out a huge blessing.  Imagination, when used properly, can will us to take a leap of faith that changes our lives for the better, forever.  On the flip side, if we always ignore that urge that tells us to "go for it", the will is useless- and we will find ourselves years from now...stuck in the very place that we desired not to be.

The book I read was called Self Mastery through Conscious Autosuggestion by Emile Coue. Click the link to read for yourself.