The Soulmate Secret: Manifest the Love of Your Life with the Law of Attraction

NEW in paperback, Arielle Ford’s THE SOULMATE SECRET, the international bestseller that has sparked THOUSANDS of happy marriages.

Have you ever wondered what it takes to find the love of your life?

Is it your dream to find a life partner who will love, cherish and adore you?

Thirteen years ago, my good friend Arielle Ford manifested the love of her life and became a first-time bride at age 44. In her bestselling book, The Soulmate Secret: Manifest the Love of your Life with the Law of Attraction, she reveals the exact prayers, rituals, processes and projects she used to manifest her soulmate.

If you desire to manifest TRUE LOVE, this guide is for YOU.

In The Soulmate Secret Arielle provides step-by-step instruction that shows you how to take control of your romantic destiny by using the Law of Attraction. She knows, from personal experience, that finding true love is possible for anyone (at any age) if you’re willing to prepare yourself to become a magnet for love.

“I reveal the exact techniques I used to bring my soulmate into my life at age forty-four. And yes, they’ll work for you, at any age.”

Arielle and her soulmate, Brian, have been happily married for over twelve years. In The Soulmate Secret she shares powerful techniques to prepare your mind, body, spirit and home for the soulmate your heart truly desires.

This ancient formula reveals that our Universe is set up to deliver the people and things into our lives that are consistent with our personal belief system.

Think you’ve already “tried” everything? YOU’RE WRONG! Chances are, you have left out some of the MOST important ingredients, like:

* Daily “feelingizations”
* Feathering the nest
* Living as if
* Savoring the waiting

WHAT ARE “FEELINGIZATIONS?”

THE SOULMATE SECRET includes Arielle’s original “feelingizations,” a series of unique processes that are the “missing link” to the manifestation process. These gentle, guided meditations allow you to re-experience feelings of love and appreciation in order to begin powerfully manifesting NEW LOVE.

To begin manifesting your soulmate NOW, click here
Arielle will introduce you to a dozen men and women who have used these techniques to manifest love, including readers of all ALL ages from around the world who have found true love using The Soulmate Secret as their guide.

WHAT’S IN IT FOR YOU?

Buy THE SOULMATE SECRET today and receive INSTANT gifts to get you started RIGHT NOW, including a 90-minute audio workshop, an e-book, a visioning video and much more!

If you are serious about having Love in your life in 2011 now is the time to take action!!

Buy the book, then visit www.soulmatesecretbook.com for your free Gifts!

What People Are Saying:

“The Soulmate Secret will inspire you and give you a glimpse that this can be a magical journey and you can truly attract, manifest and find your soulmate.” – Deepak Chopra, author of Buddha

“Arielle Ford provides a beautiful way to let go of any hurts of the past and bring new love into your life today. Practical, inspiring, and hopeful, The Soulmate Secret leaves even the most cynical about love ready to find a soulmate.” – Marianne Williamson, author of Age of Miracles

“Arielle Ford, in inspiring and encouraging terms, offers from her direct experience how to prepare in consciousness, heart and spirit to magnetize, recognize and respond to the soul’s call for an authentic, conscious love relationship.”
- Michael Bernard Beckwith, author of Spiritual Liberation

Utilizing The Fall Equinox for Growth and Evolution

Acquiring ‘Super Powers’ has been the theme of “Harry Potter,” the “X-Men,” “Spiderman,” “Heroes” and a series of other very popular films and television programs over the last few years. Could this be a reflection of our awareness that we are waking up to our Higher Soul potential individually and collectively? We all seem to know, at a deep level, that this is a powerful time of awakening and that our latent Soul abilities, including our Souls’ creative power, are being called into a new and profound awakening.

We all know that our potential to live as actualized, self-realized Souls in human form is far greater when we are in touch with our Soul’s wisdom, grace and power. Our Angels are here to help us evolve, grow and transform to embody more and more of our Soul’s power to create the lives we were born to live and to help those we are connected with to do the same.

The Equinox is a potent time to meditate, set intentions, invoke our Angels and gather together to receive fresh inspirations and infusions of Soul energy, wisdom and light.

Our Angels call these opportunities “Passages of Light” because we make a passage from a lower level of consciousness and creative power to a higher one. Our Angels guide us and bless us as we accept more of our Soul’s love and creative potential and they help us use new levels of ‘Soul power’ to manifest our best intentions.

I have been writing about how powerful this year is for positive transformation and I am sure that you have felt the acceleration of the overall energy that has been kicked up to a new level. This new level unleashes both higher potential for us to be creative and also engages our “Shadow Self” to bring our fears up and into our awareness. This is a natural process of self-evolution and is vital to achieving and maintaining higher levels of creative power.

Our Shadow self is here to help us grow – not bring us suffering. Our Shadow Self is here to help us become acutely aware of our fears and to help us transform our fears with the help of our Angels who are embodiments of love, wisdom and grace. The stronger the light, the more visible our shadow becomes and the greater the potential for positive self-transformation. Our Angels work with us to transform the fears of Shadow into compassion, care, talent and ability.

The Equinox is the precise balance point where day and night (light and dark) are exactly equal and in perfect balance. When something is in perfect balance, it takes very little energy to move it one way or the other. This is why the Equinox is such an important sacred day in so many of the world’s spiritual traditions. It is the perfect time to set new intentions and apply yourself to positive shift in the direction of greater love and to release and let go of self-limiting fears.

We are in an era where acquiring these Soul “Super Powers” of greater intuitive abilities, clearer guidance, greater support of Source “Energy and flow” is becoming easier with each passing Lunar Cycle.

In the Yoga tradition, we are moving from the age of the Kali Yuga (Age of Materialism) to the Dwapara Yuga (Age of Energy) The Greeks called these ages the Iron and Bronze Ages (Iron-Bronze-Silver-Gold being the entire cycle.)

This is an opportunity to work with your Angels and take advantage of the power of this special day to move your intentions into completion for 2010. The momentum you create now will benefit your work throughout the year.

Our Angels have been helping us optimize our abilities to work with the powerful energies of 2010. We received loving help in setting our 2011 intentions in January and additional help in February to stay on course and to amplify our efforts.

During the Equinox, day and night are equal, symbolizing a point of balance in the interplay between our own light and dark sides.

Those of us who are consciously evolving on our spiritual path often experience a back and forth between our higher aspirations and our self-defeating belief systems. While this is potent, it can also be frustrating at times. Thankfully, we can take advantage of this “window of power” at the Equinox to make quantum leaps in the embodiment of our highest aspects and release limiting beliefs and old fears.

We can bring great peace to the balance and integration of our “light side” and our “dark side”. When we integrate and balance in this fashion, we find a place of loving, conscious and generous power. We re-energize ourselves around our Soul’s Purpose and restore our natural passion to achieve it.

As we consciously connect to this point of balance within us, we can enter into a state of transcendence and experience the unity beyond the duality of the light and dark. This expands our perceptions of ourselves and helps us overcome the limitations of our old thoughts, feelings and beliefs.

When we’re not oscillating between the polarities of love and fear, we become clear, perfect vessels of divine love and realign with our original purpose for this lifetime. We can consciously increase the presence of our soul’s inherent gifts and find the power and passion to further develop and share them.

What is the the Angel of Light & Shadow?

The angel of light and shadow embraces our higher self and our soul self. We love to connect with our higher self to get those perceptions from our soul, the highest aspect of our being. Yet, we are often hesitant to connect with our shadow side and our shadow side is a very powerful aspect of our being.

Our shadow side holds wisdom, compassion, empathy, and understanding, our ability to relate to the fear, sorrows, and sufferings of those around us. When we are working with the angel of light and shadow, this angel helps us bring about a beautiful integration of our light side and our dark side, of our higher self and our lower self, of what we love and what we fear.

This is a kind, compassionate, loving angel who helps us to embrace our whole being to integrate and to find that place of creative power that our soul intends us to have in this lifetime. When we work with the angel of light and shadow, we can welcome with love, heavenly love, and angelic love every aspect of our being, all that we are. Our shadow is an ally, a friend, and a supporter.

There is nothing evil, nothing bad, and nothing sinister in our shadow side. Our shadow side is simply a representation made manifest of what we fear. What we fear has under it nothing more than a call for love. Every fear that we can experience is a call for love and disguise. The angel of light and shadow helps to reveal what that call for love is. Our shadow side carries within it the aspects of self that are meant to be transformed this lifetime from shadow, from fear, and to love.

Our shadow side is an important source of guidance, important source of evolution for us. We welcome our shadow side with friendship and with warmth. And before we do this, we invoke our angels. We create a field of angelic love and angelic presence. We call to us the unconditional love and light of heaven that we fear no shadow that we welcome shadow into light and into love.

Many of you have been reporting remarkable results from working with your intentions this summer. Feel free to share any heart-opening and mind-expanding experiences of  Angelic Blessings in the comment section below…

Experiment Shows Brief Meditative Exercise Helps Cognition

A study published last month shows strong benefits between meditation and cognition. The study suggests that the mind may be easier to cognitively train than we previously believed.

Psychologists studying the effects of mindfulness meditation found that meditation-trained participants showed a significant improvement in their critical cognitive skills (and performed significantly higher in cognitive tests than a control group) after only four days of training for only 20 minutes each day.

CHARLOTTE – April 16, 2010 – Some of us need regular amounts of coffee or other chemical enhancers to make us cognitively sharper. A newly published study suggests perhaps a brief bit of meditation would prepare us just as well.

While past research using neuroimaging technology has shown that meditation techniques can promote significant changes in brain areas associated with concentration, it has always been assumed that extensive training was required to achieve this effect. Though many people would like to boost their cognitive abilities, the monk-like discipline required seems like a daunting time commitment and financial cost for this benefit.

Surprisingly, the benefits may be achievable even without all the work. Though it sounds almost like an advertisement for a “miracle” weight-loss product, new research now suggests that the mind may be easier to cognitively train than we previously believed. Psychologists studying the effects of a meditation technique known as “mindfulness ” found that meditation-trained participants showed a significant improvement in their critical cognitive skills (and performed significantly higher in cognitive tests than a control group) after only four days of training for only 20 minutes each day.

“In the behavioral test results, what we are seeing is something that is somewhat comparable to results that have been documented after far more extensive training,” said Fadel Zeidan, a post-doctoral researcher at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, and a former doctoral student at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, where the research was conducted.

“Simply stated, the profound improvements that we found after just 4 days of meditation training– are really surprising,” Zeidan noted. “It goes to show that the mind is, in fact, easily changeable and highly influenced, especially by meditation.”

The study appears in the April 2 issue of Consciousness and Cognition. Zeidan’s co-authors are Susan K. Johnson, Zhanna David and Paula Goolkasian from the Department of Psychology at UNC Charlotte, and Bruce J. Diamond from William Patterson University. The research was also part of Zeidan’s doctoral dissertation. The research will also be presented at the Cognitive Neuroscience Society’s annual meeting in Montreal, April 17-20.

The experiment involved 63 student volunteers, 49 of whom completed the experiment. Participants were randomly assigned in approximately equivalent numbers to one of two groups, one of which received the meditation training while the other group listened for equivalent periods of time to a book (J.R.R. Tolkein’s The Hobbit) being read aloud.

Prior to and following the meditation and reading sessions, the participants were subjected to a broad battery of behavioral tests assessing mood, memory, visual attention, attention processing, and vigilance.

Both groups performed equally on all measures at the beginning of the experiment. Both groups also improved following the meditation and reading experiences in measures of mood, but only the group that received the meditation training improved significantly in the cognitive measures. The meditation group scored consistently higher averages than the reading/listening group on all the cognitive tests and as much as ten times better on one challenging test that involved sustaining the ability to focus, while holding other information in mind.

“The meditation group did especially better on all the cognitive tests that were timed,” Zeidan noted. “In tasks where participants had to process information under time constraints causing stress, the group briefly trained in mindfulness performed significantly better.”

Particularly of note were the differing results on a “computer adaptive n-back task,” where participants would have to correctly remember if a stimulus had been shown two steps earlier in a sequence. If the participant got the answer right, the computer would react by increasing the speed of the subsequent stimulus, further increasing the difficulty of the task. The meditation-trained group averaged aproximately10 consecutive correct answers, while the listening group averaged approximately one.

“Findings like these suggest that meditation’s benefits may not require extensive training to be realized, and that meditation’s first benefits may be associated with increasing the ability to sustain attention,” Zeidan said.

“Further study is warranted,” he stressed, noting that brain imaging studies would be helpful in confirming the brain changes that the behavioral tests seem to indicate, “but this seems to be strong evidence for the idea that we may be able to modify our own minds to improve our cognitive processing – most importantly in the ability to sustain attention and vigilance – within a week’s time.”

The meditation training involved in the study was an abbreviated “mindfulness” training regime modeled on basic “Shamatha skills” from a Buddhist meditation tradition, conducted by a trained facilitator. As described in the paper, “participants were instructed to relax, with their eyes closed, and to simply focus on the flow of their breath occurring at the tip of their nose. If a random thought arose, they were told to passively notice and acknowledge the thought and to simply let ‘it’ go, by bringing the attention back to the sensations of the breath.” Subsequent training built on this basic model, teaching physical awareness, focus, and mindfulness with regard to distraction.

Zeidan likens the brief training the participants received to a kind of mental calisthenics that prepared their minds for cognitive activity.

“The simple process of focusing on the breath in a relaxed manner, in a way that teaches you to regulate your emotions by raising one’s awareness of mental processes as they’re happening is like working out a bicep, but you are doing it to your brain. Mindfulness meditation teaches you to release sensory events that would easily distract, whether it is your own thoughts or an external noise, in an emotion-regulating fashion. This can lead to better, more efficient performance on the intended task.”

“This kind of training seems to prepare the mind for activity, but it’s not necessarily permanent,” Zeidan cautions. “This doesn’t mean that you meditate for four days and you’re done – you need to keep practicing.”

The paper, “Mindfulness Meditation Improves Cognition: Evidence of Brief Mental Training” is available on Pubmed at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20363650.

Public Relations media contact: James Hathaway, 704-687-5743   jbhathaw@uncc.edu

Research Source: Fadel Zeidan, 704-578-1271  fzeidan@wfubmc.edu

Michael Moore Speaks About Health Reform

An open letter to Republicans from Michael Moore.  The great thing about the health care law that has passed? It will save Republican lives, too.

To My Fellow Citizens, the Republicans:

Thanks to last night’s vote, that child of yours who has had asthma since birth will now be covered after suffering for her first nine years as an American child with a pre-existing condition.

Thanks to last night’s vote, that 23-year-old of yours who will be hit one day by a drunk driver and spend six months recovering in the hospital will now not go bankrupt because you will be able to keep him on your insurance policy.

Thanks to last night’s vote, after your cancer returns for the third time — racking up another $200,000 in costs to keep you alive — your insurance company will have to commit a criminal act if they even think of dropping you from their rolls.

Yes, my Republican friends, even though you have opposed this health care bill, we’ve made sure it is going to cover you, too, in your time of need. I know you’re upset right now. I know you probably think that if you did get wiped out by an illness, or thrown out of your home because of a medical bankruptcy, that you would somehow pull yourself up by your bootstraps and survive. I know that’s a comforting story to tell yourself, and if John Wayne were still alive I’m sure he could make that into a movie for you.

But the reality is that these health insurance companies have only one mission: To take as much money from you as they can — and then work like demons to deny you whatever coverage and help they can should you get sick.

So, when you find yourself suddenly broadsided by a life-threatening illness someday, perhaps you’ll thank those pinko-socialist, Canadian-loving Democrats and independents for what they did Sunday evening.

If it’s any consolation, the thieves who run the health insurance companies will still get to deny coverage to adults with pre-existing conditions for the next four years. They’ll also get to cap an individual’s annual health care reimbursements for the next four years. And if they break the pre-existing ban that was passed last night, they’ll only be fined $100 a day! And, the best part? The law will require all citizens who aren’t poor or old to write a check to a private insurance company. It’s truly a banner day for these corporations.

So don’t feel too bad. We’re a long way from universal health care. Over 15 million Americans will still be uncovered — and that means about 15,000 will still lose their lives each year because they won’t be able to afford to see a doctor or get an operation. But another 30,000 will live. I hope that’s ok with you.

If you don’t mind, we’re now going to get busy trying to improve upon this bill so that all Americans are covered and so the grubby health insurance companies will be put out of business — because when it comes to helping the sick, no one should ever be allowed to ask the question, “How much money can we save by making this poor bastard suffer?”

Please, my Republican friends, if you can, take a quiet moment away from your AM radio and cable news network this morning and be happy for your country. We’re doing better. And we’re doing it for you, too.

Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com

P.S. I’ll have more to say on this tonight, live on CNN, at 9pm ET. I’ll be talking with Larry King about the health care bill and where we go from here, considering we still don’t have universal health care.

P.P.S. In case you missed these photos in yesterday’s NY Times Sunday Magazine… That’s the results of seven years of madness. The Iraq War began its 8th year this weekend. How can we remove more of those responsible for this tragedy in November?

Source:  MichaelMoore.com

kaleidoscope of new possibilities

“At the height of laughter, the universe is flung into a kaleidoscope of new possibilities.” ~ Jean Houston

Deficit Inattention Disorder

I am positive we are in deep financial doo-doo.

This should come as no surprise what with our body politic afflicted by Mad Cowboy Disease, Truth Decay, and Irony Deficiency, all of which have led to the most devastating condition of all, Deficit Inattention Disorder. As for the bail out plan, unfortunately most of the perpetrators have already bailed out using their golden parachutes, so when the crash comes they will have nothing to worry about. Meanwhile, according to the most recent Greenspan Report, the average American family barely has enough “green” to span the average month. So those of you spiritual folks who’ve long envisioned a moneyless society, your patience is paying off. We’re almost there!

Friends, the economy is in trouble.

It’s a buy-ological fact. A healthy economy is a thriving multi-sell system that needs buyers and sellers. If we look at buying and selling as energy exchanges, we see that that is what life is about — moving energy. An entity that doesn’t move energy is inert. Another word for inert is “dead.”

So the issue isn’t about whether things will be bought and sold, the issue is what are we buying? We build a healthy economy by buying that which builds health, and the more we buy healthy things the more we focus our energy on creating more health. While it is understandable why one might go into “financial hibernation” to preserve valuable resources, giving and receiving is how life continues.

As we collectively awaken with a terrible hangover from our economy’s long borrowing and spending binge, we might ask ourselves, what is truly valuable? What builds health, sanity and functionality? What in our economy do we want more of, and what do we want less of? Every dollar is a vote, so maybe now is the time to vote for what we are most devoted to. So perhaps the economic crisis isn’t about withholding giving … but rather about giving more authentically. It might mean giving a service, a loving homemade gift. It might mean buying selectively from local, green or organic businesses.

Fortunately, money isn’t wealth. In and of itself, it is worthless. If you doubt that, try this simple experiment. Eat your money. While high in fiber, paper money has little nutritional value. And here is something even more amazing. A hundred dollar bill has no more nutritional content than a dollar bill.

So here’s the real good news. As surely as the sun comes up every morning, we have more abundant wealth than we know what to do with. Wealth is energy, and how that energy is used. Not only have we been given solar energy to grow our food and power our lives, we’ve been given soul energy as well – to use and magnify our resources wisely. With the collapse of the house of credit cards economy, we can finally get real. We can use the two most underdeveloped resources on the planet, love and imagination, to re-grow our Garden and have a heaven of a time doing it.

What are YOU doing to help?

Just For Today

This article is about one way to make new beginnings, based on five principles formulated by Mikao Usui, the originator of traditional Reiki. Usui developed the principles out of his realization that spiritual, emotional, and physical health depend on a change in attitude and the assumption of responsibility for one’s well-being. The principles are valuable for anyone who wishes to increase their enjoyment and appreciation of life.

The First Principle:

Just for today I will not worry

Worry may result from a feeling of separation and isolation. We are often taught that we’re individuals. We separate ourselves from the so-called lower species; as individuals we isolate ourselves from those of our own species.

Alone, we feel small and vulnerable, and we worry about our ability to bear the burden of survival. Lost in worry, we forget that we can choose to reunite with the energy of universal love, a power which can dissolve our worries and fears. The more we allow that energy to flow through us the more we come in touch with a natural state of grace. The more we consciously become open to trust and faith the more we experience ourselves as part of a safe and loving universe.

Every small step towards trust is a victory. When we review our lives we notice how little the huge disappointments of the past mean to us now. We find ourselves glad that some of the things we wanted so desperately didn’t happen. We discover a larger purpose to the events of our lives.

The Second Principle:

Just for today I will not anger.

This isn’t a recommendation to keep anger bottled up inside or to pretend that it isn’t there. I’m for feeling every emotion. I hit pillows, write letters (which I later burn) to the objects of my anger. I experience the anger until it dissipates, then examine its roots.

Once I reach the point at which I cab look at the situation dispassionately I often find that I hold beliefs which are compatible with the situation which is making me angry. Because I used to believe that bosses were unfair I regularly encountered bosses whose behavior confirmed my belief.

When a person makes me angry I ask myself if they mirror emotions or issues within me which I don’t want to face – that is, unless I really don’t want to face it. It takes courage to face those inner demons, but the reward is great. The braver I get the more willing I am to view people in my life as manifestations of lessons I need to learn. Some day (when I’m a realized being) I’ll come to appreciate them as my teachers, and love will replace anger.

Until that glorious day, I say to myself, “Just for today look at the people and circumstances you’ve attracted into your life – without blaming others or yourself. Just for today, see what within yourself needs healing.”

The Third principle:

I will honor my parents, teachers, and elders.

I (and many others) have modified this principle to be more inclusive. I hold it as, “Just for today I will honor all of life.” It’s another way of honoring myself.

When we honor other creations with the grace and love of our spirits, practical gestures are also appropriate. We can plant a tree, overcome laziness and recycle. We can honor the food we eat, the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the fire which warms us. We can thank all beings who have helped us by passing their gift of understanding and support on to someone else who needs it.

The Fourth Principle:

I earn my living honestly

This statement can be expanded to read, “I live my life honestly.” This is less a question of whether one calls in sick to work, then goes to the beach than of whether we are honest with ourselves.

If we say we want to grow spiritually, but do nothing to create that growth, we need to honestly examine the depth of our commitment. If we ignore the loneliness inside by pretending we don’t care that we’re not in a committed relationship we need to acknowledge our feelings, to honor the truth of our emotions. We can’t solve a problem if we refuse to admit its existence.

Ask yourself what longings lie hidden inside your heart; what creative urges have been suppressed. Ask for guidance through dreams and visions. Ask for an understanding of your soul’s purpose in choosing physical existence. The answer is within you’ it awaits only your receptivity to unveil itself.

The Fifth Principle:

I show gratitude to everything.

The fifth principle flows naturally from the other four. If instead of worrying, we trust that love and happiness are our birthrights, if we recognize that what makes us angry mirrors the beliefs which block us, if we honor all of life and our own divinity by being honest with ourselves, we will become grateful for the gift of physical existence.

Step by Step

The bold among us may want to take on all of The Five Principles at once. Those of us who prefer to experience transformation in smaller doses may prefer to work on one at a time.

Say, for example, that you decide to work on anger. One step in this process might be to list everything in your life that you’re angry about. To truly discover this you may find it helpful to apply the principle of living life honestly. If you do so you might find a number of issues you’ve avoided handling because someone might get angry because you raised them (or you might get angry at someone else). The next step might be to feel your anger fully, then to decide what changes you’d like to make.

I’ve found that an ongoing maintenance program is valuable, too. Anger is less overwhelming when we acknowledge it and deal with it as it arises, and when we allow the possibility that anger often stems from anger at ourselves we go a long way towards handling anger with honesty.

Programming for Peace of Mind

Crystals are invaluable tools for assisting us in keeping our commitments to ourselves. Because the molecular structure of crystals is orderly and symmetrical they radiate energy in a consistent and steady manner. Simply being in the presence of this harmonious energy field can help us to become more harmonious in our beings.

When we program crystals we intensify this energy flow. The process is very simple.

Create an affirmation (always in the present tense), i.e., “I live my life honestly;” “I have loving communication with my children.”

As you hold your crystal visualize yourself in the desired situation and experience the feelings of being in it. Say the affirmation to yourself.

Then put the crystal some place where it won’t be disturbed.

Below are some stones and flower essences which closely relate to the Five Principles. Clear quartz may be used for any of them.

Just for today I will not worry.
Crystal: rhodochrosite.
Flower essence: Chamomile (FES)

Just for today I will not anger.
Crystal: red garnet, sugilite.
Flower essence: Holly (Bach)

I honor all of life.
Crystal: moss agate and chrysocolla, in particular, but any crystal helps to reveal the beauty and wisdom of nature’s creations.
Flower essence: Nicotiana

I live my life honestly.
Crystal: obsidian, lapis
Flower essence: Deerbrush

I show gratitude to everything.
Crystal: rose quartz, rhodochrosite, rhodonite.
Flower essence: Holly, Willow

Strength in Awakened Attention

Key Lesson: Whether it’s for joy or sorrow, whatever we wish for another person comes true for us in the same moment we make that wish!

Imagine for a moment a woman who inherits an antique jewelry box from a loving grandparent. She puts the cherished keepsake on her makeup bureau, next to her own collection of rings and pearls, but never really pays it much mind. And there it sits. But what she doesn’t know is that her grandmother hid a priceless diamond ring within it, in a secret compartment. It’s hers to have, if only she knew where to look for it. But will she?

In many ways this is a story not unlike our own: for “hidden” within each of us, and yet in plain sight, is a power unmatched in its brilliance. What is this potential diamond of the mind that awaits whoever will find it? It is our ability to attend to what we will. Coupled with awareness, attention empowers us to unite ourselves with whatever we wish to know and be. Let’s examine this largely unexplored gift of ours.

We are all graced with an immense interior gift: the power to give our attention to what we will – to what enriches and serves us.

Continuing states of stress and sorrow are the result of having mistakenly placed our attention upon what punishes us, stealing from us our happiness as a result. Any time our attention is given to some thought or feeling, it animates that condition; our attention invests what it falls on with a certain kind of life energy. Another unknown phenomenon about attention is that when it is given to something – for instance, a timeless night sky – it facilitates within us a union with the qualities of that “world.” And this dynamic is in operation all the time: to consider something is to be connected to it. So, our attention connects, animates, and nourishes whatever we lend it to in life. And more than this, but as a part of its power, we have all witnessed the following:

You’re stopped at a red light, and you look out your car window at someone passing by. You follow him with your eyes – interested in something about his appearance or manner. As you remotely study this person, the power of attention moves through and across time and space and it “touches” him in some way. The next thing you know he turns around and looks at you!

This power can be used for good or bad. When we use it for practical work, or for honest self-observation, we use it to our own benefit. However, when this power operates on its own, within us, without our awareness of what it’s interacting with, it can cause many problems. Here is where the unattended mind becomes the breeding ground of self-defeat.

For instance, any time our attention is placed, without our knowing it, on some way to escape ourselves, here’s what happens: more often than not we find out – too late – we got hooked up with some self-harming idea that ultimately led us to compromise ourselves.

This new kind of self-knowledge places us on the threshold of a wholly different, brighter life. If by being inattentive to our own interior life, we see how much of our unhappiness is self-created, then, we can learn to redirect our attention, placing it within what is right and bright. But, there is only one way to realize this reversal: we must work to see how wrongly directed attention works against us.

Perhaps a thought pops into your mind about a problem that’s been bothering you. Appearing with it is some emotional disturbance. Now the thought starts rolling, growing in its demand for your attention. Almost instantly it has defined what needs to be done, or what you are powerless to do. And both states accomplish the same dark end: You’ve unknowingly animated that thought and given it a life – and the life you’ve given it is your own! Here’s an example of how this scene might unfold:

A man is walking through his office when his boss walks by and gives him a blank look. The thought pops into the man’s mind that his boss is criticizing him or doesn’t like him. Now, as he starts to fear this idea – a negative picture produced by his imagination – his mind focuses its attention on this disturbing image. And the more he attends to this dark dream, the further into its labyrinth he descends, strengthening its presence and power to further irritate him.

A heartbeat later, he has no doubt: the boss has it in for him! This thought grows in authority for him, tormenting him for the rest of the day and causing him to snap at his family when he gets home. And all of this suffering is born of what? The conjunction of a passing glance and a moment of misdirected attention!

Here’s the amazing thing about this illustration, and what we want to learn from it: this whole drama has been played out inside of the man – storyline, stage, cast, and leading characters. But he doesn’t see how this painful state is self-created; instead he believes it has been cast upon him by someone else – his heartless boss! So, what else can he do – being in the dark as he is to his true condition – but try to rid himself of his stressed feelings? How? By arguing with his boss, either outwardly or in his mind. The more he feels punished by the situation that he sees in his mind, the more he wants to fight with it. He’s sure his unwanted experience exists independent of his perception of it, but we can see he’s mistaken.

His pain is a product of how he sees the event and then all of the misery that comes with resisting his own mistaken perception. He is quite literally lashing himself, and the more he resists what he thinks is happening, the more it happens to him! This is a good description of what I call the “circle of self.” In it we can see how the pain of our own mistaken perception produces the enemies it needs to keep itself alive.

From our vantage point, we can see how the man’s unattended mind first animated a fearful thought, which leads to wrongly feeding it with his own life. We can also see that nothing can change for him until he sees the truth behind his trouble and withdraws his consent from it.

We suffer because we consort with painful thoughts and feelings, thinking somehow that not wanting them makes them go away. But our unconscious actions betray us: first, by animating what makes us ache, and then by binding us to that relationship through our resistance to it. Here’s a simple way of saying these last few ideas: Not wanting our negative states actually nourishes them! I can almost hear the question that comes next: “Wait a minute! You can’t be saying these dark thoughts and feelings are good, and that we should want what’s hurting us, are you?”

Of course not! Negative states have no right to exist in us as they presently do. And that’s just the point. We literally give them a place to live in our psychic system – feed them, as it were – by trying to rid ourselves of them in the usual ways. But there are other ways of dealing with pervasive dark states besides resisting them, suppressing them, or trying to change the conditions seen as being responsible for them.

Instead of these acts of willfulness, we choose in favor of watchfulness. Rather than struggling with dark states, learning to be quietly watchful of them does two things at once: first, it separates us from being wrongly identified with our own thoughts about that troublesome state. Second – by the light of our newly liberated attention – we catch a glimpse of a powerful insight whose light helps set us free:

If we mistakenly give any negative state its “life” – then the opposite must hold true: we can consciously withdraw that same life any time we so choose!

Here is a simple exercise to help you get started with this new kind of seeing that is the power behind freeing you. Several times each day, whenever you can remember to do it, deliberately disconnect yourself from your own thinking. Choose awareness of your thoughts over being absorbed in the sensations they produce as they carry you along to get what they want. The aim here is simple: reclaim your attention in order to be where you are, and then just quietly notice all that you can about yourself. The light of this new order of awareness empowers you to catch and release what your own unattended thoughts had been busy cooking up for you, using you as stock!

Each time you remember to reclaim your attention in this manner, with it you regain your life. And here is a bright bit of encouragement to help you get started. The words that follow are those of Simone Weil, a brilliant French writer, activist, and lover of the Light: “Even if our efforts of attention seem for years to be producing no result, one day a light that is in exact proportion to them will flood the soul.”