[success]Why don’t you start believing that no matter what you have or haven’t done, that your best days are still out in front of you. ~ Joel Osteen[/success]
We wonder why stuff happens, or doesn’t happen. And we act as though every event is separate from, and has absolutely nothing to do with us.
I imagined it, why didn’t it happen we wail? Or even worse, why did that happen instead? It’s a bummer.
Cue mysterious music, for our whodunnit movie.
And there we are all the time, right slap bang in the middle of the whole shooting match. The common denominator in it all is us.
There’s nothing random about the way life with a capital L works. It isn’t a theoretical exercise, it’s a real life event and there’s a real life reason behind it all.
We don’t just have a desire fulfilled as some accidental, off the wall, incident. Our relationships don’t break up totally out of the blue. Our careers, aren’t over one day, for no apparent reason, or because we think someone doesn’t like us, or our boss is a miserable toad.
Our success in manifesting our desires, or getting something rotten in its place, can usually be traced back to our inner blueprints or paradigms.
Paradigms – what do they have to do with it?
Everything.
Our paradigm is the view we have of our world. It’s our little map of reality. It’s the place that holds all our beliefs and feelings and thoughts and ideas and we use it to make sense of where we are in the world. Sort of.
I remember driving through central Spain and would find myself on roads that didn’t even exist on the map, which made it pretty tricky to navigate. Road signs were non existent. So we’d just follow the sun for a while, sprinkled with a little hope and lots of prayer.
Sometimes we’d end up in really cool places, like Chinchon…honest, it’s a real place, you can look it up. It’s very quaint.
And other times we’d end up in the back of beyond. That’s the luck of the draw with a dysfunctional map.
Paying attention
Our inner maps are a bit like that. They were pieced together from when we were mere babes in arms, our subconscious always busy recording every event, on top of which, each event and experience would be reinforced as they were repeated in our world. And we began to give our experiences meanings, based on these maps.
We began to develop our point of view of the world.
We’d record and store traumatic events as a way to keep ourselves safe in the future, ‘cos then we’d know just how to handle them. Right? The goal being safety and security.
And patterns of thought and behaviour began to emerge.
Get a reality check
There are times when I’ll hear or read something that doesn’t feel good, and being aware my paradigm might be a bit off in some circumstances, I turn to my Darling One to get his take on it. To him, it might have an entirely different meaning…he’s seeing it through his own paradigm. In those instances, I’m happy to exchange my map of reality for his.
If you have a fierce reaction to something, ask someone you trust for their take on it, it might be that you need a slight shift in your paradigm, a new perspective. It might not. But it’s worth a try. Responding instead of reacting is usually a much better feeling place and we all know, feeling good draws more good things.
That’s what we want to manifest.
Deal with it don’t dwell on it
Okay so miserable stuff happens in life and we need to manage it. What we don’t have to do is dwell on it ad nauseum. We need to be dwelling instead on experiencing what we actually want to happen.
Think of a feather.
No, not joking…go on…think of a feather.
What happened? Did your mind spell out f-e-a-t-h-e-r.
I don’t think so. What happened was you got a picture of a feather in your head. Your feather might have been black, or white, or black and white or even brown or pink. Point being you had a picture of a feather.
This is how our mind’s work, in pictures. So get a picture in your mind of what you want. You probably can’t help picture making as you think thoughts, even though you might be unaware of it at the time. It’s such a natural part of how our mind operates that we don’t always notice it.
If you’re in pain, see yourself feeling great; not doing so well at work, dwell on how happy you are to be there; relationship bust up, imagine having the best relationship you’ve ever had. Most of all add a feeling to every picture. FEEL the best feeling you can muster.
The Hillary effect
Remember the first man to climb Mt. Everest?
Edmund Hillary didn’t know how to get there. Didn’t know what needed to be done. He just decided he was going to.
He did it and failed.
He was told, you can’t get up that mountain…seriously, anyone who’s ever tried has died. Nobody’s been up there, the air’s so thin you can’t breathe.
Well I’m going back up there he said. And in 1952 he tried again…and failed.
In 1953 he got a picture in his mind of being on top of that mountain and he and Tenzing Norgay manifested it. Around two thousand people have made it since.
We can add Hillary’s experience to our road map. Build a picture of how you want to live and then live it. You don’t need to know how. Just hold on to the picture in your mind and dwell on it daily and often.
One percent makes all the difference
That’s not much in anyone’s language is it? But in the language of spirit, of creation, of manifesting, it can be huge. Whatever your life looks like now, if you can manage to have one percent more thoughts focused on your success, on your awesomeness, on living your most amazing life, the difference in your world will be phenomenal.
If you can feel happy, joyful, blissful,relieved, or whatever feeling works best for you, one percent more each day. The results will be fantastic.
Just one percent will do that…imagine what ten percent or more can do. You’ll soar.
Our life isn’t lying to us. It can’t, it’s an incredible system revealing who we are in ways that we can’t mistake if we’re aware and listening to the messages. We’re given every opportunity to do it differently, again and again…as many times as it takes.
But the most profound message of all is one that all the master teachers throughout the centuries have tried to share. At the level of your greatest self you are spiritually perfect, you are complete and whole.
So you see you can’t ever declare yourself a failure ‘cos it’s just not possible.
We’d love to hear from you. Share in the comments your biggest take away. Is manifesting an easy path for you, or are there some areas more challenging than others?
And always encourage one another.
Love Elle
14 Comments
Another great post Elle….and excellent reminders about the power of intentionality (at least that’s what I like to call it!) As you say, what we focus on usually manifests–be it the thing of our dreams or the thing of our nightmares. We decide. No matter how difficult the circumstance, we can make it better by looking for the good. I can say without a doubt that because I have been working the process for a long time, it is VERY relevant in my life. Oh, and love your blog post title 🙂 (of course I’m a bit prejudice with anything that contains SMART!) ~Kathy
Hi Kathy…yep I can see how the choice of smart in a title would resonate with you! Would love to hear more about your successes through ‘working the process’ Kathy. Love a good success story. 🙂
Hi Elle, It’s funny, I don’t usually think of it as manifesting, I think of it as following the signs along the road and doing my best with it! The remark you made about paradigms is so true – perspective taking can change how we think of something, and usually in a better way. I discovered this recently when one of my kids had to attend a class on taking other people’s perspectives, and I watched the instructor demonstrate the possibilities, from the tricky to figure out to the ridiculous, to prove her point.
Hi Julie nice to see you, I know how busy you are. I’d love to hear more about the class on perspectives, sounds a wonderful thing to teach our kids.Do tell. 🙂
Elle, 10% change in what we imagine would make a significant change, your point about no randomness is right on target. Seems to me that a belief in randomness is our refuge when we don’t know why this stuff is happening to us. Much easier to believe than that we caused it.
Oooh I like that concept Dore. Randomness is our refuge. Now that’s going to ring some bells with some of us. Great insights as usual. 🙂
Hi Elle,
I love your idea of not dwelling on our misery, but to keep it as light as a feather. We are all initially programmed to be looking for the negative, to be avoiding danger for our survival. For many of us, that means we have to retrain our brain which you are helping us to do each week, to savor the positive, by being with it and focusing on it. Thanks as always for your lovely inspiration! xoxo
Thanks as always Cathy for your views and perspective…you always add depth to our conversations. Retraining our mind is so important if we’re to exchange one set of beliefs for something better. Wish it could happen overnight…ah well…I’m just keeping on keeping on. 🙂
Hi Elle,
“If you can manage to have one percent more thoughts focused on your success, on your awesomeness, on living your most amazing life, the difference in your world will be phenomenal.”
I had a breakthrough last week. I’m applying this to…”Technology is so hard to learn.” That should do it!
Yay. I would remind you to look at where you were last year regarding technology and you’ll probably see how far you’ve come and now you’re adding a few more thoughts in the direction you’re headed…all I can say is look out world. Here come’s Tess in all her boldness. 🙂
Hi Elle,
This was a wonderful post, indeed!
I could really appreciate the advice you shared about using our ability to create pictures in our minds to really serve us.
One point in your post, which really struck a chord with me, is what you said about asking for the opinions of others, especially when the map we’ve created about something is creating an emotional problem for us. Like the example you gave with your partner, other people will have a different perspective and meaning of what we are experiencing. Listening to the views of others can help us to get unstuck from the problem we’re experiencing.
Thank you.
Thanks Hiten for your kind words. I’m glad you enjoyed the post. And, as I discovered for myself, your point about listening to the view of others is an easy way to see that what we see is as much about us as it is about the ‘facts’. Always enjoy your perspective on life. 🙂
Elle, you do it with such panache! Yes, we are the major block to manifesting our good because we don’t believe we are worthy, and can’t imagine ourselves as having it.
Why thank you Rev Dore…all praise happily received. 🙂