Repeatable Magic – Solving Big Problems A Step At A Time

My 85-year-old friend Vince made a motorcycle – from the ground up! It’s a classic Honda cycle and it’s gorgeous. And we need to sell it. Why? Because we once purchased a timeshare that we ended up not using, and the monthly payments are not what we want to be investing in, particularly for something we’re not using!

We’ve been in a pickle for a long time here. Until today.

Vince’s kick-ass 1979 K-750 Honda

We were sitting at lunch and talking about how to get someone to buy it. Do you know how many people are trying to sell their timeshares??? It’s a lot.

As I sat there fuming a little about the injustice of it all – never mind that we bought into it all by myself; it’s so comforting sometimes to think, “it’s so unfair!” – I thought how badly I felt about palming it off on someone else who may discover that they have the same problem as we do now! Then I suddenly recalled my “I’m curious how Spirit is going to iron this out…” thing (see previous blog post a couple of days ago), and I said out loud, “Divine intelligence shows us the way to release this timeshare with divine right timing, in divine right ways.”

Vince looked at me with the blank stare that actually means, “I think you might be crazy.”

I don’t mind. Crazy might be the new sane. Anyway, I kept eating my lunch, and suddenly realized that we might be looking at the whole problem in the wrong way. I looked up and said, “Hey, maybe we’re looking at this the wrong way. Maybe we should be looking at what we can do that’s fun – emphasis on fun, by the way – to raise the money to pay the thing off, and then just donate it to a place one of my Facebook friends found for me. Then we won’t even have to pay the membership fees! We’ll be done!”

I mentioned eBay, and first I thought of books. But ohmygod, I would have to sell 1,600 books to raise the money! That’s not going to be a quick undertaking. So I started explaining eBay to Vince – remember, he’s 85; a young 85, but still not a computer maven – and as I spoke, I said, “So, we need something to sell that is a higher-priced item that we won’t have to sell as many of, in order to get the money. Do you know what I mean?” Yep, he knew. I went on, “See, it’s like selling your motorcycle like we were talking about a few weeks ago – but I’m not talking about selling your motorcycle – if we have a bigger ticket item…” and he interrupted.

“But I do want to sell my motorcycle. I have a bad knee, and I can’t ride it right now, until and if I get that knee fixed, so why not be smart and sell it and take care of the timeshare like that?”

Why not indeed!

So I’m on it. I’m going to do a video of him and the motorcycle, post it on YouTube, get the word out on Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook…and get it sold!

It’s a beauty. I’m sorry that he has to let it go. But he’s not sorry, he’s just determined, so there ya go.

Now…tell me that all of that isn’t from saying, “Divine intelligence shows us the way to release this timeshare with divine right timing, in divine right ways”! You can tell me, by the way, but I won’t be listenin’! And for those of you who don’t believe in this “stuff”, here is some real grounded real stuff for you: if I had continued to only worry about how it wasn’t going to happen – “we don’t have the money”, “we don’t know how it’s going to get paid off” – those new thoughts just wouldn’t have happened. Not during that lunch, anyway. And the problem would have still been on my mind. Ick.

You know what else strikes me about this? I didn’t have to be sitting in some meditational fervor, or even some meditational state of bliss for this to operate. I simply stated the truth. Why is that “truth”? Because it’s based on the principle that runs through every single, solitary religion that has ever been, which is that God/Spirit is ever-present, and always flowing its fix-it magic downhill. The practice of speaking the truth and letting it reveal itself, that’s the part that I’ve discovered through New Thought, and because it’s truth, it’s accessible in so many other non-New Thought ways! Woo-hoo!

Wait a minute. Could fixing all of my problems be just as simple as speaking the truth, and waiting in open expectation to see how it happens?

God, ain’t that worth a try??? Yuh-HUH!

Peace out! – Lori

The Bridge From Struggle to Ahhhhh

I don’t want to (and couldn’t, anyway) lie about what I’m feeling or perceiving, so the question has always been: how do I simultaneously make room for what I’m feeling, while focusing on the ever presence of Spirit, and its nature of straightening everything out (because I haven’t straightened out much of anything, really, in my life, hard as I’ve tried)?

In fact, how do I focus on the straightening out, without getting engaged in the struggle again: this time, the struggle of “making things right”?

Rev. Dr. Michael Beckwith, Agape

I have a two-CD set of Michael Beckwith’s (Rev. Dr. Michael Beckwith, minister and founder of Agape Spiritual Community near Los Angeles) that I was insanely blessed to receive during a class at the Oakland Center for Spiritual Living that I attended. I listen to that set all the time, and every time I do I hear something that either supports me, or opens a door in my consciousness.

Two days ago the magic open door was his saying that people commonly make a mistake when doing “Affirmative Prayer” – what Wikipedia nicely defines this way: “Affirmative prayer is a form of prayer or a metaphysical technique that is focused on a positive outcome rather than a negative situation.”  With affirmative prayer, we affirm that God and its qualities are present, “in us, as us”, because God, or Spirit if you prefer, or the Life-Force Itself, can’t be anywhere but everywhere, and we are a part of everywhere. We affirm that those things that we resonate with, those things that are our heart’s desire (in my case, my successful acting career), are already here, and already done, already taken care of, already in the process of unfolding.

Again, this isn’t wishful thinking, but is based on principles of God’s not being able, really, to be anywhere else but here!

Dr. Beckwith said that the mistake people make is that they say all the right words, but then stay more interested in and focused on the problem than the solution. And basically, the problem doesn’t get solved because we’re all focused on the problem, on trying to solve it ourselves, rather than letting the Spirit itself unfold in perfect harmony.

Okay. I get that. But what I didn’t get was where is the bridge between acknowledging the pain or discomfort that is going on, and knowing that the answer is present??? And that question was progress, actually. My first question before that one, a few months ago, was how do I acknowledge that the feeling of fear or doubt or physical discomfort is present, and yet also affirm that God’s solutions are present, and do that with truthfulness?

So, when I started doing affirmative prayer a year ago, in order to be honest about both my feelings and God’s presence, I wielded the principles of God’s presence internally like a spiritual light saber, letting myself be aware of what was going on internally, either physically or mentally or both – stating the opposite Spirit-principle – and then watching/feeling the Truth affect the non-Truth, the fear or doubt or whatever. And it is a really cool and powerful thing to watch that, to have that happen. In other words, if I was frightened about money or lack of money, I would practice sitting with “knowing” that God is all the money that could ever, ever be, and that God is within me as me, so therefore I have lots of money, vibrationally, and I would watch the fear decrease. I would leave that prayer and meditation time feeling lighter. At least for a little while.

(Then, of course, I had to move on to studying Abraham Hicks (check YouTube if you haven’t met up with these really fun teachings), because Abraham is all about vibrational alignment. But I digress.)

Yesterday, I sat in meditation and prayer, and I arose from my contemplations not soothed at all, really. Got in my car, popped in Michael Beckwith’s CD’s for the umpteenth time and heard that thing about being more interested in the problem than the solution – the spirit’s solution, the energy’s solution, the solution of that flow that we call the Universe, or God, or Spirit, or The Thing Itself (Ernest Holmes, writer of The Science of Mind).

I understood suddenly in a real and immediate way that it is where I put my focus that is the real deal here. Michael said that when people put their focus on the problem rather than on God, it is “misplaced interest”. Okay. That’s nice, Michael, but how am I going to be able to do that??? Then I realized what would help, linguistically (because I understand things better with the right words): curiosity. I got the words “I’m curious”. I’m curious how God is going to bring money into my life in great big gobs! I’m curious how Spirit is going to unfold my successful acting career. This was a light going on, because this was something I had understood – had “tested” – a long time ago when my father was suffering from strokes and other illnesses, and I had to, for years, leave my consciousness open to both what was happening, and what might be possible. In those days, the word/concept of “possibilities” was the focus that kept me going. For example: Yes, my father was in the hospital with yet one more illness, AND I sort of left my attention open to what might also happen, positively, and my father who should have died at least three times in the first year of his illnesses, lived, and improved, and had a life of real quality before he died six years later. Yes, I think I had a real impact on what happened with my father – see Gregg Braden on YouTube…but I digress again!

So, this Beckwith-inspired opening is really more of a deepening. Very interesting.

I had the opportunity to put this to the test yesterday too. I was driving to an appointment scheduled for 1:30. I was nervous that I would be late. I was, frankly, freaking out. I’m good at it, sadly! I realized that I was focused on the problem rather than the solution, and I said to myself, I wonder how God’s gonna work this out so that I’m on time, and I know that I will be on time. Two minutes later, I pulled up in front of the building with four minutes to spare. Yes, I probably would have still made it there in two minutes. But I would have been a nervous wreck.

Also, I’m just metaphysical enough to wonder: would I have pulled up in front of the building that quickly if I hadn’t done that? Or would my nervous wreckitude have placed annoying situations like traffic jams in front of me?

I’m going to stick with this perception, and I’ll let you know what happens. But what I can tell you right now is that this kind of focus, even now, leaves my mind and body so much calmer, so much more open to receiving insight, intuition, and joy, where the fear and doubt that I have spent decades “perfecting” my focus on, just leaves me a nervous frickin’ wreck.

Really, which would you choose? You’d have to be a little nuts to choose to be a nervous frickin’ wreck! I kinow! I was nuts for a long, looong time!

So, curiosity, it seems is the bridge between awareness of my feelings and thoughts, and that metaphysical, magical, love-based thing, that reality, that “makes the crooked ways straight”.

I am really curious to see how this new practice unfolds! It feels good, though. Really, really good. I’m not denying anything that I’m walking through, situationally or emotionally, and I’m feeling hopeful, not wrecked!

Whew. What a relief…

Peace out!

Lori

When “Stuff” “Comes Up”

Through the years I have heard so many spiritual “isms”. One of those that always baffled me was this one:

“When I step into a new way of being – a transformational moment – then all of my darkness comes up in order to be cleared.”

It baffled me because I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how it would be cleared!

Magically?

Over time?

By chanting the name of my guru over and over?

Nope. Apparently not. Not if my life was anything to judge by! “Things” “came up” and I just suffered my way through it, wondering why I felt myself to be the only person on the planet who didn’t know what I was supposed to be doing – or not doing – to “clear” those things or to allow them to pass through!

Oh, it’s not that I didn’t get lots of advice: Pray, Meditate, Chant, Call out to God, Surrender (that’s another good one to talk about in a blog post!)…. But I never found that any of those things did a bit of good at helping or healing or clearing me of these things that were “up”!

It was maddening.

Then I came to the path of New Thought, and suddenly there were principles and tools to work with – actual useful methods and ways of thinking that allowed me to understand what the deal was and how to work with it. The one principle that must be returned to is – God in us, as us, is us. We are so much a part of God that praying to God becomes a vastly different process than it used to be when I thought God was somewhere far, far away, or someone far, far from being an intimate part of me!  The one tool that I am currently using to great effect in remembering the nearness of spirit is “affirmative prayer”.

While it takes an effort that is comprised of focusing and refocusing as many times as it takes, the principle is this: When I actually feel and know some aspect of my Godness, if you will – whether that is my wealth, or my health, or my compassion, or my wisdom…right? – even if I only know and feel it for a few seconds (!), then the opposite will arise. Okay, so far so good. But how to clear it? By going back and back to the opposite spiritual quality by using the tool that I find powerful: affirmative prayer!

So, if I claim my wealth, and poverty slaps me in the face, I have to go back to affirming my wealth – but not just saying over and over, “I’m rich, I’m rich, I’m rich” and hoping the words alone will swamp my bank account with millions. No. Instead, there has to be an internal and experiential understanding – which thank God I’ve been introduced to and I’ve claimed and continue to claim – that because God is everything, that means that I’m part of that everything. That because all of God’s qualities cannot be separate from God Itself, all of God’s qualities are in everything – and that includes me! So they must be accessible to me!

So, now when I pray, I am affirming the God qualities until I feel them to be the Truth in this moment itself, and I watch my life change. (And if I’m just completely unprepared to claim God’s qualities in me, I get someone else to pray with me – to affirm that which I can’t do in the moment!)

Please let me tell you that I am not talking about affirmations. Affirmations are misunderstood greatly, I feel, and in the past were my greatest thing to dislike, until I learned how to work with them. If they already work for you, I would hazard a guess that you are keying into some kind of pulsating reality around the affirmations you are using, which was not something that used to be a part of my affirmation experience, and so I never saw results. Understandably, they frustrated me.

In any case, what works for me right now is something called “affirmative prayer”, and it comes from the New Thought arena (Centers for Spiritual Living are all around the country, and they are the New Thought “churches”),  and affirmative prayer goes like this, in 5 distinct steps:

(1) Know and state that God Is. That whatever quality I am needing in my life, that is a quality of God. So, for example, if I’m poor, I know and state the ever-existence of God’s infinite supply. I affirm and know it definitively, because I know that God is everywhere.

(2) Know that I am one with that quality because I am one with God!

(3) Realize (or “make real”) the quality in my life, using statements like: “I know that I am showered by God’s infinite supply. I know that as a part of God, as God’s beloved child, I can have no need that is not supplied.” And just so you know, be prepared to hear parts of your mind argue. That’s okay! In fact, you can fold that into your praying! If my mind says, “But, hey, I’ve been broke a long time! What the hell are you talking about???” then my next sentence in this part would be, “The past is over and I know something now, which is that God is my supply, and no external situation has more power than my recognizing of the power of the Truth of God’s qualities in me.”

(4) Gratitude – What a relief to be able to claim, in this moment itself, all of my goodness! All you have to say is “thank you”. It is said by many, and I have had the experience, that when we really feel our hearts open, gratitude is natural, and then the words of gratitude and appreciation flow. In the meantime, “thank you” works! 🙂

(5) Let it go. You have stated the truth, and it is the Truth of Now – not the truth of what-will-be. It seems like what-will-be to us because we live in linear time, but in God time it is done, and it is done now! So you say that you let it go, you let it be, because all that you have said is so. “And so it is. Amen.” That is the traditional finishing phrase in New Thought.

So…that’s my best remedy for all that “comes up”, all the darkness that I have so many years of clinging to. I have to keep recognizing that “stuff coming up” is just another chance to recognize what is the lightest, best, most powerful aspect of my best self!

And nothing can stand against that. If in the midst of knowing what uncomfortable things I am feeling and thinking I can also claim the light, guess which one wins? You got it. The light. Nothing can stand against that.

Nothing.

With principles, I can watch things “come up” and know what ground I’m standing on – claiming my oneness with God – and help myself, with greater compassion, by staying there amidst the grit and grime of my experience, and watching that change of consciousness do the heavy lifting.

It’s not easy, namby-pamby work, but it beats the heck out of doing it – or thinking I’m doing it, and failing at it – all by myself, without that consciousness. And I no longer have to wonder what magical or unknown thing will make that “stuff” that is “up”, go away.

My focus will. The light of my own true identity will. This is what Rev. Beckwith calls “taking dominion” over our thoughts. Yahooooo!

So, knowing more about what to do when “stuff” “comes up”…priceless! 🙂

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For more information about Centers for Spiritual Living and the New Thought movement, or about this kind of “affirmative prayer”, check out Rev. Dr. Michael Bernard Beckwith’s Agape Church in Los Angeles, CA, and any Center for Spiritual Living across the country.