Just Stop Talking About It

My life has been positively exploding with opportunities lately!  I have been remodeling my house and so many things began falling into place people pointed out to me I was almost building an entirely new house!  Now, as I decorate the reconfigured rooms, each stroke of paint seems to make me feel just a tiny bit more alive and excites me.   A friend told me it was like I was building my own personal Wonderland.  I couldn't have said it better myself.

At the same time, opportunities for travel are opening up.  I have friends in both London and Paris who have a guest bedroom available.  I visited New Orleans for Mardi Gras this year and in a little over a month I will be in Alaska.  That was a big Law of Attraction moment of delight.  I have been talking about wanting to go to Alaska since the 90's.  Recently, I have been saying I would like to try a cruise, maybe a theme cruise for added entertainment, and after friends went to another workshop since the retreat we attended together, I decided the next workshop I would like to attend would be one with Abraham and Esther Hicks.

Yes I am.  I am going on an Alaskan Cruise with Abraham and Esther Hicks.  After talking with my two friends, on a complete whim I googled some sort of mixture of Abraham-Hicks, workshop and cruise and found an outline of an experience that could have been lifted right off from my vision board.  Including the port visit attractions.  Even with all that, I still messaged a friend who has been to an Abraham-Hicks Caribbean Cruise.  He said, "If you asked me if I would do it again, I would answer, 'In a heartbeat."  Excited almost isn't a large enough word for how I feel.

So I'm immersing myself in Abraham-Hicks teachings.  I would really like a chance on "The Hot Seat" and even though it is probably next to impossible given how long Abraham has been answering Hot Seat questions, but I would like to ask a new one.  I would like to identify the best question I could ask Abraham for my own behalf AND nudge the discussion a little further along.  As I listen to Abraham-Hicks audiobooks and youtube presentations, I have already had my first potential questions answered and I'm becoming pretty well versed in Abraham's Law of Attraction point of view.

If you find yourself unhappy with your life and the opportunities that are presenting themselves to you, the answer is in the question.  Don't understand?  Voice the question you would ask Abraham to yourself lightly.  Is it something along the lines of:

Where is my soul mate?  The love of my life?

Why am I not more successful?

Where is my slice of happiness?

So far the number one takeaway I have from all of my Abraham-Hicks studies is the importance of being happy and having a positive attitude.  The things you want in your life that aren't there are held back by your own repetition of complaint they are missing.  The more you keep "beating the drum" (as Abraham would say) of the bad things that have happened to you; the more you push all of the good things you've been wanting away.  You attract not what you want, not your opposite, but exactly what you are.  The next time you complain about that dimwit fellow employee or that road raged driver who cut you off?  Consider this.  According to Abraham, they didn't just drop into your lap.  You actively attracted them.  So if you find yourself surrounded by bad tempered, combative people, you might want to do an emotional self check.  You want to aim for a high frequency to attract a high frequency item.  You need to be authentically happy to attract more happiness to your life.  

Authentic happiness.  You can't complain about all that baggage, cross your fingers behind your back and say, "Just kidding."  The universe doesn't listen to what you are saying.  It reads the emotional frequency you are broadcasting.  So if you are in a "the world sucks and then you die" place, guess what world you will attract?  

But "misery loves company" right?  We think it feels good to complain to others and get recognition and confirmation of our position.  We feel validated, but do we really feel better?  Or is it like the junk food aisle of happiness?  A temporary, not very filling alternative that frequently leaves us no better than we started after our sympathetic audience has departed?  

There used to be a joke something along the lines of "Why do I bang my head against the wall?"  "Because it feels so good when I stop."   But it's not really a joke.  It's the way life works.  If your life isn't working, you are metaphorically banging your head against things and asking when this pain in your head will go away.  Stop and it will go away.

I've been studying the Law of Attraction for a few years now and that's what I've been trying to do.  I know I've had times where I have found it impossible NOT to drone on about the bad things that have happened in my life.  I remember the feelings of needing to explain.  The feelings of needing to be understood.  Some time not that long ago, a friend gifted me with one of the most important things I needed to hear to begin the process to stop.  

"You talk like you're the only person that has ever happened to."

I immediately recognized the truth in what he was saying because it was also how I felt.  The fact that my friend had had similar experiences and had not talked about them like I did was startling and liberating.  

You don't need to tell everyone your story.  You don't need to explain.  You don't need to justify.  You don't need to set up a context for who you are now or who you want to be.  According to Abraham, all you need to do is, in this moment, find the happiest, highest frequency you can reach.  In the next moment?  Find the happiest, highest frequency you can reach.  Repeat.  Repeat.  Repeat.  Don't beat yourself up when you find yourself slipping.  Slowly make your way to an emotional place where you feel better.  If you feel better, you have raised your frequency.  

Salt your world with music that inspires you, colors that soothe you, textures that comfort you.  Hug, squeeze and breathe in the people and creatures who you love.  Learn to focus your attention on the world you love rather than the news that scares you.  Try this.  Have you ever been driving, your favorite song comes on the radio, you're singing along and all of the sudden, another car cuts you off?  By the time your hearing for anything beyond your own cussing has returned, it is three songs later.  Right?  

There are no fewer than a thousand reasons you cannot be privy to that may have caused the driver to behave as he did.  Your judgement about him is based on you and your fear and has little to do with him.  You don't even know him.  Meanwhile, you didn't die and your favorite song is still on the radio.  I'd say your best and happiest course of action, and the one that will benefit your future the most, would be to keep on singing.  

Stop talking about everything you hate and give some airtime to everything you love.  

So, I Took a Walk Yesterday

That isn't such a big deal.  I took a walk the day before too.  With a friend.  At about 2:30 in the afternoon.   The big deal is that I took one of those things I've been meaning to do and did it.  I don't know about you and your life, but in my life, I seem to see significant changes every half year or so.  One of my more recent changes is in my sleep patterns.  I fall asleep pretty early most nights, sometimes waking up in the insomniac time zones of the night only to realize the reason I'm awake is because I've already gotten enough sleep.  Seven hours is seven hours whether you wake at 7:00am or 4:00am.  For a week or two now I have felt twitchy.  It's as if my body is trying to tell me I have been neglecting it.  I keep hearing friends who talk about morning walks.  They sound really good, but the time always seems to slip away leaving me once again ready for bed without having ever taken that walk.

Not only did I take a walk, by myself, but I took it at 6:30am.

For the first three blocks I was still on the fence as to whether I wanted to walk or not.  The air was cold enough I was still a bit chilly even in my sweat clothes.  I had only walked by my neighbor's house before my left foot felt like I had extended it too far and I had a sharp pain in the arch.  I usually wear Chuck's.  If I'm not in my slip on Converse shoes, I'm probably barefoot.  I've never understood how shoes I essentially "live in" can suddenly become uncomfortable just because I do something a little out of the normal like take a walk or go to a convention or a theme park.  I kept walking.

Three more blocks and I'm off my street.  I told myself two blocks ago the only reason my left foot hurt is because I'm focusing my attention on it.  Think of something else.  Listen to the birds.  I can feel the cool air in my throat and bronchial passage.  I'm unsettled by my breathing becoming a bit more labored and I struggle with my inner critical voice who decides now would be a good time to tell me I'm a loser who never works out and who looks like a potato.  My right foot starts to hurt.  I keep walking.

Three more blocks.  Whether they are now successfully "warmed up" or "stretched out," neither foot hurts anymore.  I'm far enough now that going back home and "forgetting this ever happened" is no longer an option.  If I cave in and quit early, I will remember.  If I succeed and finish my planned route, I will remember.  I keep walking.

I walk through the exhaust stream of a car warming up just before I pass my friend's house.  My route is roughly based on our walks together.  Just past her house is the half way mark.  Neither foot hurts and I have warmed up enough that my sweatshirt seems almost unnecessary.  I've been walking a slightly wider, more busy street on the border of my neighborhood, now I turn and head into the interior streets.  Immediately I notice it is even quieter.  It is almost as if I am the only person awake.  I feel almost like an intruder.  Except for another empty car left running to warm it up, the only other life present is a cat trying to keep warm at the end of a driveway and a crow who seems to want to chase me off his street with his persistent cawing.  I pull out my phone, take a picture of the cat and a tree I admire in one of the front yards, and continue walking.

Three more blocks.  I'm closer to home than not, but on a different street than I usually use when in my car.  Nothing hurts.  I'm feeling good and I'm taking in the scenery as I pass it.  My inner voice, no longer trying to abuse me, is full of "that house is a pretty color" or "I wonder when they added the extended porch to that house."  After another three blocks, my confidence is high, I feel almost like a veteran walker and I can see my house in the distance.

Walking up the steps to my house, I picture myself flopping into a chair and relaxing.  As I open the front door, my cat, an even greater creature of habit than myself, is startled by the unusual activity and puffs twice his size.  (The front door at my house doesn't usually open before 8am and that is usually after he has requested it verbally in a variety of meows.)  Honestly, I don't remember what I did next.  I know it wasn't flop in a chair.  I kept active.  I kept moving.  A certain momentum had begun and I seemed reluctant to let it end.  What I do remember was how my legs felt the rest of the day.  Relaxed, moving smoothly, gracefully.  They felt happy about the morning's events.

I think that's how change works.  You have to fight past your natural resistances.  Your ego/mind wants to protect you and will sling a bunch of abuse at you to discourage you.  It can't see any dangers in your comfort zone.  It doesn't know that living your life with box-like limitations is very .....  well ..... limiting.  If you can distract yourself long enough to get past the initial discomfort and internal naysaying, you surprise yourself by doing things you've never done before.  Frequently with ease.  You might even actually enjoy yourself.  Still, for awhile, the next time will require the same effort.  It will require remembering how good my legs felt rather than thinking how cold the air feels or that my left foot has started the journey unhappy again.  I know too that, if I can keep this up for four weeks, at the end of that time I will be a walker.  It will become a habit.  At this point, it is mine to decide whether I want it or not.  I'm a big believer in occasionally assessing "what do I want out of life?" and then going out and getting it.  Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I'd like to take a walk.

The Levels of Consciousness

I need to preface this blog entry by saying you are never responsible for someone else's feelings.  The influence or contamination of emotional feelings that I describe in the blog can both happen to others encountering you as well as to you when you encounter others.  What I am always trying to shine a light on is that, just because you may be having a rough day or going through a bad patch, YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BE UNHAPPY.  Emotions are good.  They are our special gauges that tell us whether we are living life in a way that is happy and fulfilling or constrictive and disheartening.  But just like a gauge in our car that tells us our car needs service, we don't simply leave the triggered gauge on red and talk about it for hours, days or weeks on end.

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There is a chart that can be found across the internet, based on Dr. David Hawkins work, which assigns a numeric value to all of our emotions.  The Levels of Consciousness chart.  They developed the numbers via kinesiology or muscle testing.

Now in the Law of Attraction, we learn that like attracts like.  In other words, a high energy frequency attracts a high energy frequency and a low attracts a low.

I was thinking about past relationships and arguments or bad moments that I've had and suddenly I could actually visualize exactly what had happened using The Levels of Consciousness Chart.

Joy is at 540 on that chart and Love is at 500.  Lets call the combination of those two "Happiness" and rather than a numeric value, let's give it a color.  Red.  Fear is at 100 on the chart and Desire is at 125.  Let's call the combination of those two "Getting Your Self Worth from Others" and give it the color blue.  Anger is at 150.  Let's give it the color purple.

In the scenario I was thinking about, a friend and I were together.  Laughing and having a good time. If you could see each of us as glowing in our level of consciousness colors, I'm sure we both would have been red.  Keep in mind, like attracts like.  We're both happy and we are supporting each other at that energy level.  Maintaining it by attracting it back and forth.  I drift out of the moment.  Something happens that makes me think of the past or triggers my lack of self worth and I begin talking to my friend, not from our red place of "Happiness," but from my blue place of "Getting Your Self Worth From Others."

Like attracts like.  In this situation, a few things can happen depending on my companion's resilience levels and skills at resisting others negative emotions.

Because that's what I've done.  I've introduced negativity into the room.  I've done it innocently enough.  I have left the present moment and my ego is running my "Getting Your Self Worth From Others" program.  It actually represents me, slipping from "Happiness" and attempting to reestablish myself there.  I suddenly feel bad and I'm attempting to feel better.

It can never happen.  It is the equivalent of trying to make a dish less salty by adding more salt.

I've introduced negativity into the room and I've broken our attraction.  If my friend is very resilient and has very good skills at resisting, he or she will probably excuse him or herself from the equation and leave the room.  If my friend is very patient and  empathetic, he or she might cajole me back to "Happiness," but I could just as easily drag my friend down.

Downward emotional stations from "Happiness" or Joy and Love on The Levels of Consciousness Chart would be Reason, Acceptance, Willingness, Neutrality, Courage, Pride, Anger, and finally, Desire and Fear or "Getting Your Self Worth From Others."  Some of those may not sound all that bad, but keep in mind they are lower than "Happiness."  In terms of emotional pain or discomfort, lower energy levels don't feel as good as higher ones.  If my friend is very susceptible to negative emotions, I may even drag him or her lower to Grief, Apathy, Guilt or Shame.  In the scenario I was thinking about, I dragged my friend to anger and we had an argument.  I converted us to colors rather than numbers because I think it is a good visual representation.  My friend was red.  I was blue.  He or she took on a bit of my blue and became purple.  Angry.

Now consider this.  You've had a bad day at work.  You come home and your loved ones, your family, are all laughing and having a good time.  They are buzzing along, red and in the 500's and you inject yourself into them, gruff and complaining, somewhere under 200.  The very best you can hope for is that they will draw you up to their level, but you are running the risk of dragging them down.  You are making yourself a burden.  It is as if your entire family was required to carry a certain amount of weight and, instead of carrying yours, you redistribute it among the rest of your family.  I'd like to think you'd never do that. I'd like to think that you would rather take on some of your loved one's burdens than willingly place yours upon their backs.

There is a popular self help meme across the internet.

"Never put the keys to your happiness in someone's pocket."

We tend to look at that from a very self centered viewpoint.  I want to be happy and I can't depend on anyone else to make me happy.    

1.  You can't "make" anyone do anything.  Just as no one can "make" you do anything.  In reality, when someone else has done something and you respond by being happy.  It was your choice to respond in that way.  Understanding this means understanding you also have the potential to choose to be happy at any time you like.  No matter what circumstances are unfolding around you.

2.  Your moods and your life are your own responsibility.  No one else's.  One of the reasons you can't put the keys to your happiness in someone else's pocket is because they are responsible for their own happiness.  No one can be or should be burdened with your happiness as well as their own.  

But what can I do?"  You might say.  "I feel however I feel.  I can't control my emotions."

There are actually a lot of things you can do.  Consider my example.  I said "I drift out of the moment."  By that I mean, I drift out of the present moment.  Instead of being present and actively interacting with my friend, I have allowed my mind to drift.  Probably to the past since what it netted was insecurity and negativity.  Whatever things happened to you at work, they are not present with you when you arrive home with your family.  They can only be there, if you drag them there.  One thing you could do is meditate and cultivate practices that enable you to be more present. You could work to make yourself more resilient and resistant.  You could do this by exploring your emotions, understanding why you feel like you feel and make peace with your demons from the past.  Or you could consider the possibility that, in order to feel happy, we must think happy thoughts and consciously decide to be happy.

One of the quickest routes to being happy?  Do something nice for someone else.  You can't "make" them happy, but you just might "make" yourself happy in the process.

Communication

I've been remodeling my house.  Most of it is skeletal.  The things a house needs to remain upright and insurable.  Right now, I'm refinishing the old floors.  Even that touches a part of my brain that tags it as necessary.  If the floors are left to weather from their already weathered state, in another ten or twenty years, I may not be considering whether or not they are pretty, but rather whether they are structurally sound.  I have been living in the house during the work and I have discovered the depths of my patience.  Meanwhile, my cat Peabody hates it.

At the moment, one side of the house is cut off from the other side of the house while the floor finish dries.  Peabody, who I rescued from the neighborhood almost never has any interest in going outside, but is seriously bothered by his current lack of mobility.  I wish I could just whisper in his ear and he would understand.

"It's ok Sweet "P".  It's only for another few days.  You'll get your mobility back."

This morning I realized I was wishing for an event with an animal that rarely even happens between humans.  To communicate and be understood.  To listen and understand.  We think we do.  Probably we even come close most of the time, but then we have those moments.  Those stark uncomfortable moments where we suddenly become aware we are talking to a friend who has become a stranger.  Viewing each other across a chasm of uncertainty and strangeness, we can't help but eventually wonder if we ever had a real dialogue at all.   

Consider this.  I have been talking with an old friend from school on Facebook.  We are finding more similarities than differences between us.  We both believe in growing and changing and improving.  We both believe choosing happiness is the answer.  We've flirted a little.  The other day, after a few weeks of this, his daughter friended me on Facebook. 

Let me stop for a moment and ask you.  Why did his daughter friend me on Facebook?  What do you think?  Figure it out and remember your answer.  

When I told him, he sounded surprised.  I told him that he had probably mentioned my name a few too many times and his daughter was protecting him.  Checking out what trouble he might be getting himself into.  He made a "hmmm" noise and said, "She is friends with a lot of my friends."  I took it as confirmation for a moment or two and then I realized I was doing it again.  If my goal was a dialogue.  If my goal was communication.  This wasn't it.  This was simply playing the B-roll of the amalgamation of my life's viewpoint.   Wherever it is that I am now having intentionally drifted from where my parents raised me to be.  The viewpoint-colored glasses that observed their close relationship and chose to see a loving daughter protecting her dad.  (I have reached the point where my glasses are colored in benign loving world tints.)  

What did you think?  I know you can't tell me, but I challenge you to consider this.  Your answer tells you nothing about me, nothing about her, and everything about you.  Ask yourself this.

What are the glasses I use to view the world tinted with?  Do you view the world in a happy benevolent way?  Or is the world more sinister and inscrutable?  Because what you see is not necessarily all that is there, but it is what you will get.  

Breathe

Some days there is nothing left to say except what you have already said.  In other words, my mind is currently percolating on whatever it wants to talk about next.  I've learned to give it the time and space it needs.   While I'm waiting, let me present "Breathe," an entry from an earlier blog originally written August 17, 2010.

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On July 1st, I started the P90X exercise program. I didn't start it because I'm an athlete; I'm not. I didn't start it because I wanted to be an athlete; I don't. I started it because I want to be strong. I wanted to regain strength I felt I had lost over the years. I wanted to build and rebuild muscle. I wanted to look and feel capable. Less than 30 days into the program, I found myself waiting at the emergency room for a family member who had had a stroke, desperately searching for strength and capability. 

There is a moment during Stretch X, where you are performing some sort of complicated maneuver that is stretching your gluts and Tony Horton talks about discomfort. It is a longish, rambling quote spoken by a man who is feeling the discomfort that he describes: I don't think I can quote it directly, but I can paraphrase it. Horton says that he feels discomfort and asks "so what do I do? I don't think about it. I breathe." He explains that every time you breath out a muscle releases slightly which, of course, would remove some of the discomfort, but that you can't breathe out unless you breathe in . . ... "So breathe." 

So that's what I did. That advice got me through the day and I realized even if Tony Horton had created a mini catalyst in my brain, it had been advice I had already been using before I had ever heard it. I had done that in the dentist's office when a cleaning seemed too long or too uncomfortable. I had used it when heavy traffic suddenly felt like a parking lot and I wanted to throw open my car door, scream and run off into the distance. 

Anytime I had felt pressured and too fragile not to break, I had used it. 

There will be times where you feel such physical or emotional pain that it is as if half of you has been crushed and you don't know if you want to die or crawl away from the part of yourself that is gone. Breathe.

There will be times when the fear and discomfort is so real and strong you will think you would willingly chew your own arm off just to get away from the trap that you've found yourself in. Breathe.

I can't promise it will make you a better person. I can't promise it won't happen again or again or again. I can't promise it will be easy the next time. But I can remind you of the Nietzsche quote we have all surely heard by now . ..

"That which does not kill us makes us stronger." 

The key to being stronger is surviving what is in front of you.

Just breathe.

Learning from Outlander's The Devil's Mark (SPOILER ALERT)

This morning I was watching Outlander on my DVR.  This morning I saw Jamie's reaction to Claire's Time Travel story.  I saw his reaction to her admission that she had tried to go back to her own time and her husband, after being married to him.

For those who aren't familiar with the show, Claire is transported from her own 20th century to Jamie's 18th century.  She is married to a man in her own time period who looks very much like the bad guy in Jamie's time period.  On television, the viewer has actually spent more time with the actor as the bad guy rather than the husband, so if I'm average, I'm all for her staying in the past with Jamie.

Perhaps it was with a lifetime of silly romances under my belt that I winced a little when Claire admitted she had tried to get home to her husband AFTER being married to Jamie.

"Oh.  Don't say it like that!"

But I was in for a surprise.  Jamie asks if Claire was trying to return to her time and husband and rather than going to a place where he complained that he meant so little to her, he looked grief-stricken as he said,

"and I beat you for it."

You notice what he did there?  He didn't make it about himself.  Rather than look to where life affected him, he earnestly tried to put himself in Claire's shoes.  

I myself can't count the number of times, in the face of a loved one and confrontation, I've looked to where life affected me rather than being like Jamie.  But if I were to make a list of all the things I love about me, at the very top would be the fact that I have been able to do it sometimes..  

It's not about right, wrong or anything being a sin.  It's about living your life in a way where you can be happiest.  You can be happiest when the people who surround you are happiest and all of that happens when everybody stops looking for where there is shortcoming.

Rather than whine about her leaving him, Jamie delivered his wife to the spot she needed to be to do just that.  As a husband and a lover, he acted selflessly and put her needs before his own.  It was a beautiful moment, even if it only happened in fiction.  That sort of love requires not just a willingness to be vulnerable, but an acceptance that sometimes I will be hurt.

All weekend I've been thinking of a friend of mine.  I know him to be a dog person even though he hasn't owned as much as one pet during the entire time I've known him.  I know because he has told me a story of his two dogs and how they died.  He has told me he was so heartbroken he could never own a dog again.  That is how we normally behave.  We get hurt and we build a list of things to avoid so we are never hurt again.  We will be hurt again.  It is unavoidable.  When we guard ourselves from everything that may hurt us, it is love that gets shut out.  Consider my friend.  By never owning another pet, he shut himself off from all of the love and happiness a dog would bring. Worse, he kept his love away from dogs who badly needed a home and for what?  Did it make him any happier?  Did it remove the pain he felt from loving a creature and losing it?  No.  I think it would be more accurate to say it memorialized his pain and kept it precious.  Rather than allowing it to fade to a memory, it kept the emotion alive.  We cling to pain in order to avoid pain.

Consider this.  When you lock a door to keep something undesireable out, you barr anything good from coming in too.

What I see most in response to the Outlander episode, is a revival of the saying:

If you love someone, set them free.  If they come back to you, they're yours.  If they don't come back, they were never yours in the first place.

The problem with that is our traditional interpretation of the saying.  Generally we see it as proof of love, when really it is an instruction in how to love.  If you love someone, set them free.  Allow them to be who they are and do what they have to do.  That oh-so-judgemental second part?  The one about whether or not they were yours?  I see it as reassurance.  You see, if you allow someone to be free that also includes the freedom to stay with you.

My mother used to have a cat.  I can remember going to her room to ask her something when she wasn't feeling well and being told "Shut the door!  Don't let the cat out!"  Now I myself have two indoor cats that I have said nearly the same thing about.  The difference is my mother was locking her cat in the same room with her.  The other difference?  When you opened my mom's door?  Her cat wanted out.  He wanted freedom.  That's the way our pets were when I was growing up.  We controlled them and they resisted us.  As an adult, I have made other choices.  Right now I am sitting in my bedroom with two cats, neither of which have to be here because I have trapped them with a door.  The final difference?  You will never ever feel as loved as you do when a creature, human or animal, chooses to stay with you when they have the freedom to leave.

Angela's Corner Pieces

Have you ever worked a jigsaw puzzle?  Have you noticed how every time you discover a corner piece, larger bits of the overall picture become clear?  I've noticed I have epiphany moments that work in very much the same way.  I've come to understand that life is not a singular journey that ends or in other words, a person doesn't just "grow up" and spend the rest of his/her life a "finished" individual.  For those who are interested and willing, lessons continue to deliver opportunities for more growth, understanding, and happiness.  In my case, "corner piece moments" arrive on the precipice of change, either nudging me to the other side or alerting me I am already there.

Those moments become like a list of points in the theorem of how I would choose to live my life.  Dedicating an entire blog to any one of them feels less like sharing my point of view than begging you to see life my way.  Not my intention here, nor my personal cup of tea.  Instead, I have decided to  share them with you in the form of a list.

Here are my personal "corner pieces" or things that have caught my attention along the way.

1.  Change Means You Actually Change.  When I embarked on the journey, I thought of change like a mathematical equation where I remained constant and simply added extra elements.  Instead, it is more like folding egg whites into egg yolks and Angela flavor and creating a soufflé.  I noticed this morning that I even sneeze differently.  Seriously.  I used to be vigilant towards whatever made me uncomfortable or felt unpleasant.  From a certain control freak point of view, sneezes are messy and inconvenient.  They also can be a bit uncomfortable if you try to stifle them because "this isn't a good time."  Now I keep my eye on the positive aspects of life.  Even when something seems to be inconvenient or unpleasant, I look for the benefit.  I had no idea that would change my view of sneezes!  They have become the moment of relief after a sudden itch.  Sometimes I will sneeze as many as ten times in a row.  I always have.  The difference is I used to resent it and find it unpleasant.  Now it just makes me laugh.

Change means you actually change.  Your point of view changes and when that changes, what you see and how it makes you feel changes too.

2.  We Think We Understand Life from a Universal Point of View, But Really We Only Understand From Where We've Been and Where We Currently Are.    Consider the concept, "what other people think."  My earliest understanding probably came from someone asking me, "If X jumped off a cliff, would you jump off a cliff?"  I thought it was all about peer pressure.  Don't let someone convince you to do something detrimental or out of character for you simply because you want to be liked.  Somewhere along the way I grew into the understanding that it is also about being yourself.  For instance, if you grow a front lawn because everyone else grows a front lawn, you will never get to enjoy the beauty of the rose garden you would actually prefer.  It became about individuality and how we all have gifts to bring to the party.  Recently, I came into the awareness that when I meet a new potential friend and I hear about his/her hobbies or favorite things, I listen with an ear for what we have in common.  I want to like all the things my new friend likes.  Really I think it comes from a place where I simply understand that the more things we have in common, the more time we can potentially spend interacting.  Realistically, if my bucket list is all dry land and yours is all water, we may like each other all we want, but we're not going to "hang out together" very often.  What I realized was, while I would have loudly protested that I had outgrown caring what other people think, I was taking on other people's stuff to keep them in my life.  I was putting their stuff before my own.  It was subtle and no longer strictly "what they think about me," but it was still putting too much emphasis on "what other people think."

When you change what you look at, you change what you see.  As your viewpoint changes, so does your point of view.

3.  Focus On What You Want, Not on What You Don't Want.  After years of neglect and ambivalence, I'm cleaning up my home environment.  When we clean house on that level, we tend to look for all the things we need to remove.  It's one thing to do it with worn out and outdated furniture, but we tend to do that with the rest of our life as well.  I don't want this job anymore.  I don't want to be angry anymore.  We tend to focus on what we don't want and talk about it a lot even while we are reading self help books telling us to focus on what we do want and not to complain!  Luckily for me, one day I had Facebook open right next to a new book I had just purchased, something about not being angry anymore.  While I was thinking, "I want to be happy," I could read the word angry on the book's cover.  That was the last book I ever purchased that took a negative stance about anything.

It's a surprisingly difficult concept to put into practice.  Consider how much you talk or hear other people talk about the things they don't want in the world.

Career politicians.
Monsanto.
Narcissistic, abusive partners.
Cancer.
Earthquakes.

Turn off the news.  Limit yourself to a pre-edited internet page each morning on Facebook, Google+ or one of the other social networks.  I can hear my parents in the back of my mind saying I'm choosing to live my life with my head buried in the sand.  Maybe it is the equivalent of putting my fingers in my ears and saying "I can't hear you," but at the same time, my life is undeniably more peaceful and happy since I made the decision.

My parents and many other people like them, leave their TV's running near 24/7 on CNN or Fox News.  The information age has tricked them into believing we have to be custodians of every bad bit of news that happens.  It's like we believe that we are causing the things to happen by not being vigilant enough in our awareness.

On August 24, 2014, there was an earthquake in South Napa where I live.  Within days, my Facebook feed was flooded with, not only pictures and videos of earthquake damage, but nearly dozens of predictions about California's next big quake.  I seemed to have friends who were reading each and every prediction.  Consider this.  When that earthquake happened at 3:20am, no news service warned you minutes before it.  You were either prepared or you weren't.

5.  Keep monuments to your successes, not your disappointments.  Seed your environment with items that make you smile or gasp in awe at their beauty.  I have been a digital photographer for nearly ten years.  I almost never print any of my photographs anymore.  I look at them on a tablet or computer.  Every time I looked through my printed photographs, I would find ten or more that reminded me of the time I tried to become a stock photographer.  I sent the required number of slides, consisting of photographs I had already created.  Labors of love.   I received word back that they were interested.  After my second slide submission, photographs shot all with an eye to becoming a "stock photographer," I received a "no longer interested."  Every time I look at some of those latter  photographs, I think those are the shots that didn't cut it.  If my conscious mind is noting each photographic disappointment, I can imagine the nasty things my subconscious mind is interjecting.

A metal trunk I purchased years ago was hidden behind my sofa.  It was buried under two blankets and six pillows.  When I finally dragged it out of its hiding place, I remembered how beautiful it was.  I remembered how excited I had been when I bought it.  I believe in the Law of Attraction.   I've learned that, when I'm focused on being positive, my life is more positive and happy.  If I weed out all of the extraneous extra items in my life and focus on only the things that bring me joy, inspire me or that I find beautiful, I think I will have given myself the largest affirmation I can.