Excerpt

You Don’t Know, What You Don’t Know

Have you? Were you? Did you?

Grow up • in a dysfunctional family?

• Suffered a period of depression or hopelessness?

• Been betrayed by someone you trusted and loved?

• Experienced sexual abuse by a person in authority?

• Battled a fight against alcohol yourself or with a loved one?

• Questioned the existence of God?

• Asked why bad things were happening to you?

• Suffered more than you felt you could bear?

• Experienced the grief of family death?

• Lost all your financial life savings?

• Want to be happy?

If you answered yes to any of the above questions, then I am just like you.

That’s good news. Why?

Because you can transform all those perceived negatives into a diamond you love. I am living proof, and if I can do it, so can you!

Don’t believe the lie that it is impossible to be happy if you have a history of suffering any kind of tragedy. Don’t believe the lie that transformation is impossible. Don’t believe the lie that you can’t be happy with all these perceived imperfections in your life story.

Don’t believe the lies! Believe EVERYTHING you now define as bad in your life, CAN and WILL be transformed into something GOOD. They will become unexpected gifts for you to appreciate, and treasure, with continuous happy gratitude.

One of the most important historical events of our time was when Neil Armstrong landed on the moon. How did he get there? In a rocket that was on course only 2.5% of the time! But he still made it to the moon, because the rocket and other pilots were open and willing, and accepted that they had to keep adjusting course along the way to arrive at their final destination. Th e goal and outcome of that goal was important enough for them to be humbly flexible and willing to adjust rocket settings. They didn’t wait until they were 40% off course to get back on the correct coordinates.

What got them there then?

They had the skill set, equipment, and tools to readjust their direction quickly, and so will you. That’s what you’ll learn here the skills to maintain and readjust your course to arrive at your well deserved destination of healthy happiness.

With a million self help, recovery, and motivational books on the shelves, why should you read this one?

What could possibly be different about The Sky is Green and the Grass is Blue? How will reading this particular book truly change “my” life?

I often asked myself these types of questions when I wandered through the shelves of books I’d grab to buy and devour when I first began this initial quest for these exact same answers in my own life. It is now my honor and privilege to pass on this knowledge to you. To transparently share this passion that I began years ago, has not left me disappointed right up to this very moment. In fact, the healing, hope, and happiness I feel inside has only grown bigger, brighter, and more powerful. And so have the results – or the rewards of freedom and peace within the entity called “me.” I learned how to make this happen and last with the tools I’m about to give you in the following pages.

Your happiness does not have to come from other people’s minds any longer! What others say or do has nothing to do with you. It actually has more to do with them, and how they think, act, believe, and perceive.

Genuinely enjoying your own company is possible, regardless of outside circumstances. Yes, authentic freedom is just around the corner of these pages.

Doesn’t that feel great?

I may not be academically approved like Dr. Phil, or a rich and famous Oprah, or possess that “listen to me” media power of Bill O’Reily, but most of us don’t. What I do bring to the table is the proof and evidence that anyone who seeks to live in peace, on purpose, and be happy regardless of outside circumstances, can change their life for the better.

These tools can offer you hope and genuine, lasting change. Change to be a happier and healthier person every day of your life, not just
when situations seem to be going your way. Believe that you too can be the best person you were created to be.

Perhaps this search for peace and happiness has only been the ghost of a possibility. A feeling in your gut, or an intangible dream,
something you could only grasp at but never really hold. You WILL change for the better, I promise, beginning with this very moment, with this very word you are now reading. In fact, it’s already begun…

Do you want to be genuinely happy? You can.

You will learn about tools in this book that you may never have known about. I certainly didn’t until someone told me. The goal of this book is to guide you to these resources that can give you the lasting happiness you seek. This is why The Sky is Green and the Grass is Blue is different from other books. This is a tried, tested, and proven ‘walk the talk’ guide by yours truly. I am here to tell you that achieving lasting happiness with these methods is an opportunity of transformation you will keep forever. Isn’t that what we all want in life?

To be so happy and peaceful on the inside that it doesn’t matter what the heck is going on around the outside. To be free to detach from the negative or often nasty comments people can hit you with unexpectedly. To be able to deal with the inevitable unexpected bombs that crash down in your life, no matter how hard you try to avoid them.

Would you like to repel these negatives in your life, like water that effortlessly rolls off the back of a duck? Unfairness of people, places and things in this world does not have to stop you from living your God-given dream.

This is what you will find in these pages. A stable, consistent set of tools and resources that you can depend on like the impenetrable consistency at the bottom of the ocean to get you where you want to be.

“How could this be a lasting change for me?”

Look at nature. Does the death of winter bring the birth of a new spring? Does the pruned-to-a-nub rose bush come back with more flourishing flowers the following year? Is it possible for a crawling caterpillar, once transformed in its cocoon to become a butterfly, regress back to its original state? No, these changes, which appear to be lasting death, are in fact transformations to a fresher, better life. This is what is going to happen to you.

How would you like to turn everything that you now define in yourself and your life as “upside down” and negative, and transform it into something positive and “right side up?” How great would it be to know your perceived setbacks are disguised gifts towards the horizon of your greatest comebacks?

It’s true!

We will use the tools shared in this book to make the very same pile of manure you hate, into rich fertilizer you love, and regularly utilize it to grow your garden of happiness. Discovering and transforming that “mess” of unhappiness you find so painful to accept, and realizing there is a way for you to change it all into a miracle of personal freedom and lasting happiness, is possible.

Here’s an example of trash before, and treasure after, transformational results you can expect to receive after using these new tools.

Before (you have) Transformed to… (you get) After

Anxiety Peace

Confusion Confidence

Fear Faith

Doubt Trust

Resentments Forgiveness

Selfishness Purpose

Anger Acceptance

Pride Humility

Depression Joy

Arrogance Openness

Bitterness Gratitude

Dishonesty Integrity

Lies Truth

Manipulation Detachment

Despair Hope

Hatred Love

The Sky is Green and the Grass is Blue was created for you. Why?

Because I want to give you everything I wish someone else had given me years earlier. How much more time could I have enjoyed? How much more energy could I have directed towards things of purpose and meaning? How much more peacefully could I have lived my life? What else might I have accomplished? What gifts did I never see in my life that could have enhanced my ability to appreciate my life? Yes, this transformation of turning your upside down world right side up will help you be truly happy. This is my purpose, my wish, my prayer, especially for you.

Where ever you go, there you are.

Why not take these positive transformations with you in everyday interactions with your friends, family, co-workers, and relatives. Trust that you’re able to transform anything from green sky to blue… And once you are transformed, everything around you is transformed along with you. Don’t waste another minute on needless suffering. Take courage, “be steadfast,” have hope! “The diamond cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials.” Confucius

You already own a diamond of happiness, and that would be – YOU!

Happiness is already in there, inside of you, screaming to shine, otherwise you wouldn’t be here right now. What you may not believe, what no one has shown you up until now, is how to chip away and remove all that ugly stuff that surrounds your personal diamond of happiness.

The upside down problem that’s causing you frustration, misery and keeping you stuck, only exists because no one showed you how to TRANSFORM the mess into a miracle. How to appreciate the very same black junk that’s been stubbornly covering up the beauty of the diamond is the very same material that made the diamond so precious in the first place! The pressure of all that unpleasant looking junk around the diamond is precisely what makes it so valuable, so beautiful, and so unique. The same is true for you.

Take comfort, join me on a journey to appreciate, remove, and replace all the black charcoal surrounding the diamond called you, so we can release your own personal dazzling sparkle and shine. Nothing in your life will go to waste.

Even in the midst of a pouring rain storm, you can make a beautiful bright rainbow. Sometimes, the greatest winners in life have lost
now and then, causing them to later rise higher, and become a true record breaking champion.

Exercise:

Write down each letter in your first name, and think of something you are grateful for about yourself right now, in this present moment; something about you, something you have, someone you have in your life. It could be any person, place, or thing.

Here is my example:

D Determination to keep a promise.

E Enthusiasm to write this book, and share these tools with you.

B Belief that anything bad can be transformed into something good.

Now, your turn;

_____________________________________________

____________________________________________

_____________________________________________

____________________________________________

____________________________________________

CONGRATULATIONS!

Your diamond is starting to sparkle with deluxe dazzle, super sensational, beyond beautiful, fine shine.

People don’t change because they see the light, people change because they feel the heat. Pain can motivate you to change for the better. If pain can lead to a good thing, anything can be transformed to bring you a happier good life.

The success of this plan, of course, requires something from you. Yes, indeed, you’ll need to bring one piece of “action” into your silent reading of this book on a regular basis. Without it, you can’t ever possibly get the happiness you seek, so listen carefully. You are required to bring an active acceptance of this simple statement. YOU DON’T KNOW, WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW.

You must firmly believe this fact, really believe this statement in the very depth and core of your heart. You will have to accept that out of all the knowledge in the world, this huge planet of data from the beginning of time until this present moment, from every human being that’s ever walked the earth, every book that was ever written, every course ever taught, every invention ever created, out of this whole enormous pool of information, you only know a very little itty bitty tiny sliver of it. You may possess merely a speck of this knowledge and truth, an eyedropper full in the mass of an ocean. That’s all you know. Th e simple truth is that you don’t know what you don’t know. Humbling, isn’t it?

Once you accept that you don’t know what you don’t know, you are open to receive.

The transformation process hinges on this, because it allows you to be open to receiving the gifts along this new journey. Every time you read a thought or a page that brings up your defense mechanism, sarcasm, or cynical inner voice, you need to be actively involved in the process by telling yourself to remove any preconceived notion in your head. Read onward, and repeat these words…”but I don’t know, what I don’t know.”

There’s enormous power in that statement, because the words allow fresh space for you to replace the void with the ability to learn, and listen. This is the only way you can possibly ever change. You must first change your thoughts before you can expect to change your behaviors.

Consider that you are not seeing things in your world as they truly are; you are seeing them as you are, through the filter of the interpretation of your personal life experiences in your own mind and emotions. My friend, you must at least consider that your thoughts have been color blind in the past, blocking you from noticing the vibrant colors of truth in the present moment. Th e sky may have looked green to you, but the true color has always been, and always will be, a beautiful shade of your favorite blue. Doesn’t the idea of having your “thinking vision” corrected feel exciting?

Imagine being your own best friend?

I mean, after all, you do spend more time with yourself than anyone else, don’t you? Why not ENJOY your own company? The very fact that you desire to be happy is a sure seal of the promise to receive it.

The only map that can lead you to that place called “happiness,” is a willingness to believe it and receive it. You want to go there, to get there, and to live there so desperately you can taste it. Remember George Bailey in the 1946 movie, It’s A Wonderful Life? He got what he asked for – relief from all his troubles, “I wish I had never been born.”

But the irony of his being able to see what life looked like without him in it was a total disaster! By the end of the movie, he realizes what he thought to be true was completely wrong, and he really did have a Wonderful Life.

Shaking in desperation, he finally begs out loud, through the heavy falling snow battering his broken heart, “Dear God, I want to live again, please Lord, let me live again.”

You are going to live again too, fully alive, in your best version possible. You are going to star in your own life’s movie with more zeal than you thought possible, imagined, or dreamed. And the academy award goes to YOU, living an authentic, happy, grateful, purposeful life with lasting love.

The following story breathes life into these thoughts. I call it The Donkey Story.

“One day a farmer’s donkey fell down into a well. The animal cried piteously for hours as the farmer tried to figure out what to do. Finally he decided the animal was old and the well needed to be covered up anyway; it just wasn’t worth it to retrieve the donkey. He invited all his neighbors to come over and help him. They all grabbed a shovel and began to shovel dirt into the well. At first, the donkey realized what was happening and cried horribly. Then, to everyone’s amazement, he quieted down. A few shovel loads later, the farmer finally looked down the well, and was astonished at what he saw. With every shovel of dirt that hit his back, the donkey did something amazing. He shook it off and took a step up. As the farmer’s neighbors continued to shovel dirt on top of the animal, he shook it off and took a step up. Pretty soon, everyone was struck with amazement as the donkey stepped up over the edge of the well and trotted off .” Author Unknown

Life is definitely going to shovel dirt on you, all kinds of dirt. The trick to getting out of the well is to shake it off and take a step up. Each of your troubles can be transformed from obstacles into stepping stones. You can get out of the deepest wells solely by not stopping, never giving up! Shake it off and take a step up. Who doesn’t have troubles?

Who doesn’t have a skeleton or two in their life history? Who hasn’t been hurt, betrayed, or treated unfairly? Who doesn’t have a problem they pray would go away? I promise you, everyone has had something they regret having happened to them, or has done something they regret having done to someone else. We all feel pain and sorrow, just like that donkey at the bottom of the pit.

Not everyone has the tools to understand how to take the dirt of disaster thrown on them, and transform it into the stepping stones that can bring us to complete freedom.

The key to the end of the donkey story is that when the donkey released himself from the pit, he ran off , totally free. Had he never entered the pit and overcome his trouble, he would still be tied up and owned by the farmer for the rest of his life. He would have remained a slave to the farmer and never known the difference. His horrible disaster brought him the complete freedom he could never have achieved without it. This is the key: if you have a mess in your life, you have a potential miracle as well.

It only benefits you to keep your mind open at all times. Your mind is like a parachute – it only works when it’s open. Keep your mind and heart open like the parachute, and I promise you’ll travel to your new beach home on Peace Island with miles of serenity sand. Wait until you see the spectacular new view from here!

You can’t unscramble those scrambled eggs. Why waste a good worry?

There is great power in the now. Give up the hope of a better past, and start focusing your time and energy on a better present moment, right now.

We may not be able to control the direction of the wind, but we can always adjust the direction of our sails. Don’t be afraid of change; be very afraid of staying the same.

Exercise:

Imagine you are now on your new home of Serenity Island. Walking on peace beach, you discover Aladdin’s Lamp. Curious, you open the cover to find a real life Genie inside. He powerfully emerges out of the lamp growing larger than life, and asks you if you want to be happy? Of course you answer, yes! He tells you to answer the following questions before your wish can come true.

1. What are you doing when hours pass by like moments?

This is your purpose.

____________________________________________

2. When do you feel most at peace and when do you feel most confused?

This is your task to transform.

____________________________________________

3. Are you willing to let go of your confusion, replace it with your purpose, and transform yourself to find everything you seek?

This is your happiness.

____________________________________________

He tells you, sometimes it is harder to let go than to hold on, and leaves you in a gentle breeze of hope.

Take courage! You’re worth the effort!

You are now going to find many treasures and KNOW what you DID NOT know, to be truly happy from the inside out. Existing in a safe place where no one can steal your joy.

Congratulations!

Get ready to celebrate transforming yourself into the unrepeatable, super fabulous diamond of a person, called – YOU.

Copyright 2010 Deb Scott. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Excerpt

CHAPTER FOUR: How the “Unconscious” Works – Understanding Our Etheric Bodies

Higher Selves Quote:

The Thought Form Body is an invisible body that contains realities that have been created through every thought generated by any individual at any point in time. Within this envelope [energy field] dwells many different “yous.” There is the “you,” for example, who lives in this altered reality as an actual energy identity who is poor, who has no money.

This altered reality has been created by you based on every thought you’ve projected dealing with a state of financial lack. This altered reality that is the “you” in a state of financial lack actually seeks to reinforce and empower itself, the altered reality that it has become. This then, quite outside of your conscious thought process, allows that altered reality to continue to grow and manifest its power and its authority over you in the physical form in the physical reality.

“Imagine what it would be like to hold on to every thought you have ever had from the first moment you were born. Imagine that each thought was actual energy that did not disappear but hung out in some energy field surrounding you. And imagine that this thought energy had some magnetic qualities so that every type of thought you’d had over the years drew all other similar thoughts to it, like magnets with the same polarity. Then imagine that all these thoughts, or energy identities, have created actual altered realities in the space around yourself. And as you grew up, these energy identities, and the altered realities they created, became larger and larger with each thought.”

To illustrate the different concepts throughout the book, I will offer many examples in order to make them easier to understand. To do that, it will be necessary in the early stages to oversimplify somewhat. However, as each chapter unfolds, revealing additional information, more complexity is woven into the picture. By the end of the book, you will see the whole of how our lives work, how each individual can take the reins of his/her life, and how to achieve true change. In looking back, however, you will notice how the picture had to be broken out into various pieces before it could then become whole. Let’s begin with an example of how thoughts create energy identities and how these, in turn, create altered realities.

Perhaps you’re someone who has focused on your weight throughout your life. Maybe as a small child you went through a chubby stage, and sometimes people around you would suggest that you refrain from a second helping. At first you paid it no mind, but then your consciousness took it in. You began to think that you were bigger than your cousins and friends the same age. You started thinking thoughts of needing to eat less candy and desserts. You found yourself rating how some friends or family members looked based on their weight. The issue built slowly for you as you went through being teased in school.

‘As an adult, you’ve struggled with your weight, trying diet after diet with limited success. And all this time, you’ve been harboring thoughts about being overweight. These similar thoughts are magnetically attracted to each other, building thought forms such as “I’m too fat,” “I eat too much,” “I’m a failure at losing weight,” and/or “I’m unlovable because I’m fat.” All these thought forms tirelessly develop an altered reality of your struggling with your weight.

Thought Form Body

Thoughts of every type have created thought forms in each of us. They come in all sizes, some tiny and some huge, with many in between, depending on the degree of thought put into them. As the Higher Selves stated in the above quote, the invisible envelope (energy field) around us, the place where these positive and negative energy identities call home, is the Thought Form Body. It isn’t actually a physical body but is instead held in an etheric energy field everyone carries with them. It contains all the thoughts of joy, fear, love, hate, hurt, illness, wealth, poverty, and ideas of the self, others, relationships, work, play, and on and on. All thoughts are held here, magnetically attracting similar thoughts from many sources, thereby building and strengthening all of our thought forms. They create all the altered realities that live with us in our Thought Form Body.

Suspending disbelief for a minute, let’s take this a few steps further by looking at how our mind works. Do we tend to think more positively or negatively as we go throughout our day? Most of you know the answer to this already.

For example, if we wake up feeling good, having had a good night’s sleep, we might think, “Oh, I feel great today! I have so much energy; I’m sure this will be a good day.” And then we go on our way and may never think of it again. Despite feeling really good, we actually tend to spend little time thinking about it. Feeling good helps us focus on the things we have to accomplish that day, resulting in thoughts geared toward those activities other than the state of feeling good.

But what happens if we sleep poorly and wake up with a backache, headache, or stiff neck? Don’t we often express a litany of complaints about it to friends or co-workers? And if a repairman or deliveryman comes by and politely asks, “How are you,” what do we say? If we feel good, we most likely just say, “Fine, and you?” But if our neck still hurts, we say, “Well, since you asked, I am having a bad day, starting with . . .”

The tendency to dwell on the negative outweighs our tendency to think positively, and every day we do so we strengthen those misery magnets. This means that when we look at the balance or the ratio of negative energy identities to positive ones, the scale weighs heavily on the negative side. This serves none of us well.

Drive to Manifestation

“Thought forms are soulless and mindless. They lack consciousness. However, they carry the power of magnetic attraction. This magnetic energy is working 24/7. In fact, it does not just attract our own thoughts but all similar thoughts from many sources, including other people. This is not a conscious act any more than an actual magnet consciously attracts. What is the result of all this attraction?”

“The result of magnetic attraction is that the energy identities (and the altered realities they create) continue to build in strength. At the point that they’re strong enough, they manifest into our physical reality. In fact, their sole purpose is to manifest. The manifestation process from all of our energy identities is what forms our outer expression or, in other words, our lives.”

For example, if it is cold and rainy outside, we may think throughout the day that we have to keep warm and dry so we don’t get sick. We see ads on TV about various cold remedies, which remind us to check what we have on hand just in case. We remember the time last year when we got the worst cold ever and had to miss work. Flu season is here and we plan to get a flu shot. We believe that all schools are breeding grounds for illnesses and have no patience for parents who send their children to school with a cold. We also believe that we are susceptible to every germ with which we come in contact. In this way, we are empowering our illness thought form (one that we already have) over and over again. And what do you know? Despite all our efforts to prevent it, we come down with a massive cold two weeks later and blame it on the time we spent helping out at our daughter’s pre-school.

In fact, getting sick was a result of the altered reality of illness gaining enough strength to manifest itself in our physical reality as a cold. It attracted the opportunity when you were asked to volunteer to read to your child’s pre-school class. This then triggered and empowered your beliefs (based on your thoughts) that you were now exposed to the germs that you were convinced would make you sick. And they did.

“Isn’t it just that colds are contagious? No. If that were the case, every teacher, parent, and student who came in contact with children would get sick. Each individual responds to each situation based on what thought forms he/she is creating for him/herself. That is why some children/teachers have perfect attendance and others are chronically sick or somewhere in between. Of course, this process is more complex than I have presented. But the basic principles are the same.”

Other examples are: If you have a large victim thought form, it will magnetically attract conditions that will make you a victim once more. If you have a failure pattern, the thought forms will bring in situations that will again result in failure. If you bring in mates that make you crazy with their infidelity, the thought forms may keep you in a cycle of betrayal. The process of manifestation will be explained more fully in Chapter Six, but our thought forms are the primary source for the patterns we have in our lives.

Habit Body

In addition to the Thought Form Body, we also carry a Habit Body. The Habit Body is another invisible envelope of energy (field) surrounding us that contains imprints of every thought and every action. Thoughts create energy identities and habit imprints simultaneously. And as the imprints of similar thoughts get deeper and deeper, they become our most ingrained habits. As we smoke/worry/procrastinate/and so on, the imprints/ruts are reinforced again. In other words, the depth of a habit imprint in the Habit Body is relative to how often we have thought the thought and/or acted the deeper the rut, the more automatic and intense the habit. There are no energy identities in the Habit Body, but the habit imprints empower the thoughts and vice versa.

“Have you ever noticed that you wake up five mornings out of seven at the exact same time? Or that you get a cup of coffee without thinking before you start any project? Or that you put on your left shoe before your right one every morning? These are simple, repetitive habits that are easy to see and are relatively harmless in the scheme of things. Of course, we all have deeper and more complicated ones, so it is very important that we pay attention to all our habits. These habit imprints work with Thought Forms to reinforce our patterns. These two working together are in part what makes it so difficult to change things about ourselves with which we are unhappy. The more ingrained a habit, the more we act on it and think about it. The thought form gains power and then manifests again, and then again.”

One of my habits for over ten years was to sleep only three or four hours a night. Once I’d wake up, I would never be able to go back to sleep, resulting in chronic exhaustion. Fortunately, by doing the exercises that the Higher Selves taught us, I was successful at changing this pattern, and those sleepless years are now a distant memory. Now I sleep at least five to six hours a night with few exceptions. I still wake up many nights, but the difference is I go back to sleep. Of course, five or six hours are not enough. Fortunately, I have continued to improve, sleeping seven plus hours a night at least three times every week. Habits can be changed, and you can do it too.

The Overall Picture

Remember that we live as humans in a Free Will Kingdom, that we choose how our lives unfold. If something happens that changes our thought patterns for a day or week, we will empower different energy identities and habit imprints and will, therefore, manifest differently than we did in prior weeks.

One example many can relate to is the unexpected death of a young friend or family member. The new vulnerability we now feel may make us realize that we have been complacent about life. As a result, we decide to focus more on preventing illness by eating healthy food and exercising. We also become more open to telling our family every day how much we love them and perhaps resolve to work harder to be a better person so that there are no regrets if we die young. Were we thinking this way before? No, but we are now. So our energy identities and habit imprints are changing as a reflection of the changes in our thought patterns.

What is more significant, however, is how often we are determined to change only to find our old habits return. How many of us with great intentions find ourselves back in the same place within days/weeks/months? How many times have we had to use the same New Year’s resolution because we didn’t accomplish it this year or the prior years? Why are there so many new diets on the market, multiple no-smoking aids, a myriad of solutions for depression, insomnia, etc? Why are there so many self-help books? Because for all our grand efforts and deep desire to change, we predictably find ourselves back in the same place, having made little lasting forward movement. This does not feel good. There are reasons why change is so hard, and this is why I wrote Choices. We need help to make the changes. There is much more to it than thinking positive thoughts. Let’s take a look at the Law of Attraction.

The Law of Attraction Clarified

Higher Selves Quote:

Thought forms are what carry the impact of what you will outwardly manifest. This is not a process that will be reached through affirmations or through consciously speaking words. For the process of thought forms is one that goes very, very deep. Thought forms are carried from lifetime to lifetime so that the buildup of these “altered realities” is very intense and very powerful.

What exactly is the Law of Attraction? It seems to be the basis of many metaphysical self-help books (including The Secret) and even has its place in some religious teachings. Simply stated, it posits that thoughts are energy and are magnetic in nature. They attract to you situations and people that match your predominant thoughts, whether conscious or unconscious. The bottom line, therefore, is like attracts like. The more positively you think, the more positive your life will be. Every individual is responsible for what they bring into their lives. Is there more to it than this? Yes.

If you have understood the information in Choices up to now, there is a good chance you see that the Thought Form Body information seems similar to the Law of Attraction. Both involve magnetic attraction that brings situations, conditions and people into our lives based on our thoughts. However, you may also be beginning to see that there needs to be more than positive thought to create real change in your life. Of course, there are people who have changed their thoughts from the negative to positive, who have brought more good into their lives than before. But what does it mean for those of us who didn’t find success by thinking positively, yet worked as hard or harder than the others who did? What about those who achieved results but didn’t recognize that what they got was either the exact right result (even if unexpected) or that it was only the first step in a process that would lead them to the final goal? What about the patterns that keep recurring in life despite the efforts to change them? Or the emotional upheavals that make us behave in ways we’re not proud of?

What has been missing in the prior teachings on the Law of Attraction is the fact that it has not been fully understood. The Higher Selves didn’t change the Law. They explain how it works. And there are two misconceptions that need to be cleared up. One, a positive thought does not negate or replace a negative thought. It only empowers the positive energy identities while the negative ones remain to magnetically attract negative situations, conditions and people into our lives. Because we harbor so much more of the negative, the positives we empower through our thoughts are still extremely weak compared to the powerful negatives. In Part II, Choices will describe a more efficient and powerful way to empower your positive thought forms, growing them to where they are increased 1000-fold.

The second misconception is that even if you never think a negative thought ever again, it doesn’t mean that the negative energy identities go away. Once created, the thought energy exists forever. Leaving those negative altered realities in place is what makes it so difficult for us to change. Whether negative or positive, the energy remains in place in our etheric bodies as thought forms and habit imprints. When these are positive, we can rejoice. When they are negative, we are concerned with what we do about them. What we must do is to neutralize the negative energies to render them harmless and incapable of magnetically attracting anything that could hurt us. Neutralizing the negatives and using that energy to empower our light is the key to change and is fully explained in Part II. Again, the Higher Selves didn’t change the Law of Attraction but added details about how it functions. Choices will show you how you can properly utilize it to your advantage.

The Shift From Victim to Taking Charge

Once we accept that we are living in a Free Will Kingdom, and that we are making both conscious and unconscious choices that create our experiences, we can find our way to take responsibility for what happens to us. So the shift goes from blaming someone, something or some event for our problem/s to looking at ourselves and asking, “Why did I bring this into my life?” “How can I change this reality?” Or “How can I prevent it from happening again?”

There is no judgment here. We are not all screw-ups who just can’t get it right. Instead, we acknowledge that we are all experiencing the human condition. Everyone has challenges to face, joys to experience, moments of wonder and moments of despair. What will be explained is the way to be actively involved in how your life unfolds. There is no magic pill to take and presto . . .you have changed. If it took years and lifetimes to develop our patterns, undoing these patterns won’t be instantaneous. However, with consistent effort, we can change our patterns, find what was hidden and untapped, and definitely improve our lives significantly.

In a year from now we will all be one year older. We can still be in the same place, coping with the same issues. Or we can use the simple Higher Self techniques and make this year and every year a witness to us becoming much more of what we want to be. We understand our conscious choices. And now we understand how our own thought forms and habit imprints, through the process of magnetic attraction, work with our conscious choices to create the outer expression we call our lives. Someone else isn’t creating our lives. It isn’t Mother Nature, your jerky boss, or a vindictive god picking on you. We are busy making and playing out our patterns consciously and unconsciously, then, taking what life gives us and handling it as best we can. Now is the time to be in charge, and we can be. We are not doomed. We are not stuck. We are not powerless.

Read more about CHOICES: Neutralizing Your Negative Thoughts and Emotional Blueprints and Janet Richmond HERE.

Copyright 2010 Janet Richmond. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Excerpt

The root of your dissatisfactions is not to be found in problems themselves,  but rather in the way that you think about them.

Terms like “working on yourself” and “dealing with your issues” are irrelevant to positive psychology because effort is not necessary.

A person’s identification as a seeker can be a profound obstacle to their own realization.

Until you learn how to summon self-acceptance,  self-compassion,  and self-encouragement, insecurities will lurk within.

Enlightened living involves living more fully in the present.  Although you may have plans and preferences, attachments to outcomes lose their importance.

When you allow your authenticity and vulnerability to arise,  the phoniness of your personality transforms into the uniqueness of your individuality.

Attempts to override fear using positive affirmations can result in internal conflict.

There is nothing that will sabotage your happiness more quickly than perceiving life through a filter of victimization.

You have within you an infinite well of compassion that can dissipate resentments, help you to forgive yourself and others, and free you from feelings of separateness and loneliness.

Read more about UnTherapy: A Positive Psychology for Enlightened Living and Sunny Massad, Ph.D. HERE.

Copyright 2009 Sunny Massad, Ph.D.. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Excerpt

When Angie and Cecil Bellephant were told that their son, Titus, had Potter’s Syndrome, they frantically searched local libraries and the Internet for further information. Little was found. Angie vowed while she carried Titus that one day she would write a book for others who face this devastating condition.

“I told Cecil, no matter what happens, we have to do something to bring awareness to people,” Angie said. “I didn’t want people to feel alone like I felt alone.”

Potter’s Syndrome is also known as Bilateral Renal Agenesis (the absence of kidneys). Their son Titus also had Branchio-oto-renal (BOR), a dominant genetic condition that can result in kidney anomalies.

Today the incidence of Potter’s Syndrome is said to be somewhere between 1 in 2,000 and 1 in 5,000. The average occurrence rate is approximately 1 in 4,000 births.

“Giant Hero” is a book that parents can hold quietly and read slowly. It also serves as a tool to teach what Potter’s Syndrome and Branchio-oto-renal are and how to obtain further information.

A contributing writer to this text is Jason Clarke, University of Iowa, Department of Pediatrics, Bilateral Renal Agenesis researcher.

Angie has turned her “mourning into glory” since Titus died. At just over 3 pounds, Titus brought many life lessons to medical workers, family members and friends.

Despite the suggestion from medical workers, some friends and family to abort Titus, Angie and Cecil chose to carry their son. Titus lived 15 hours and 7 minutes. Even his pediatrician was amazed at his strength and determination to live.

“Titus wasn’t perfect by medical team standards, but he was perfect to us,” Angie said.

“Cecil and I knew that our only option was to carry Titus as far as we could,” Angie said. “Doctors could not tell me Titus was suffering. I would never let any of my children suffer. Titus was alive. Very much alive.”

Through this manuscript, Angie and Cecil intimately walk parents through the diagnosis, birth and years following the loss of Potter’s child. Giant Hero will help family members, nurses and doctors see that the decision to continue carrying a baby is ultimately up to the parents.

Cecil Bellephant also shares personal thoughts on his wife’s strength while carrying a child that was destined to die, and how he continues to mourn the loss of his son today.

“Even though it was hard to let him go, I thanked God that He gave him (Titus) to us in that short amount of time so we could give him back. I thank God for that,” Cecil said.

“something in (his) look will forever give me strength to go on day to day,” Cecil said about Titus. “I remember those eyes. It wasn’t a smile, or a frown. God says that strength is made perfect in our weaknesses. There was strength there in Titus’ eyes.”

Angie has since reached out to other parents who have lost a child and spoke to nursing students about infant loss.

As she shared her story with others, Angie learned she had a gift of public speaking.

“I felt like I was touching people and that if I could do more, God would guide me to do it,” Angie said.

Thus, her book, “Giant Hero,” was born.

Family members and friends told Angie and Cecil that they should not try to have more children. Once you have a Potter’s baby, the risk of carrying a fetus with some kind of kidney defect is about three percent. But the Bellephants put their faith in God and continued to try having more children. They already had a son, Cyrus, who was 3 when Titus was born. As time went on, God blessed Angie and Cecil with two healthy daughters, Genesus and Joyus.

We pray that this book brings comfort and hope to everyone touched by Potter’s Syndrome, including parents, siblings, family members and friends. We hope it educates health care professionals on what it may be like for moms, dads and family members who face this devastating diagnosis. And, we hope it provides a doorway to obtain more information about this devastating condition.

Copyright 2008 Tracy Ahrens. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Excerpt

Introduction

It was never my intention to become a stay-at-home mom.
After a job loss and achieving our goal of getting out of debt, my husband and I found ourselves in the position to have me stay home with our kids. We trimmed our budget to its limit and decided that we could do it, somewhat against my will.
But now I’m exceedingly grateful. I have to work hard to use money as wisely as I can, but I’m now more available for my family, friends and community. I’ve had many conversations over the last several months involving my strategies for being able to do what I do, especially in our current economy.
This process of using money wisely will take planning, patience and discipline. There will be many changes, with the potential to cause anxiety and questions.
I don’t know the answers to all the questions, but I do have some strategies that have helped me save money and sanity. And I can offer words of hope.
It can be done.

Why Do This?

My last grocery shopping trip consisted of 10 boxes of microwave popcorn, a two-liter of soda, and rinse agent for the dishwasher.
Final cost out of pocket – $2.05, with a savings of $16.
The day after, I went to another grocery store and purchased my son’s prescription, and because I filled the prescription with them and presented the required coupon, I received a $30 gift card. I then spent $28 on groceries, including fruit, vegetables and whole wheat bread – and saved $50. Final Cost out of pocket: $9.74 for the prescription.
The total out of pocket expense for the combined trips was $11.79 for a stockpile of groceries that my family will actually eat.
Every shopping trip isn’t this victorious, but it helps me remember why I stick with my strategies.
They save me money. In some cases, a lot of money.
Money that can be freed up to do other things for your family, like a nice vacation or paying off debt. Like planning for your future retirement or your child’s education.
More importantly, though, it has taught me the value of good stewardship. I don’t waste money anymore. I don’t waste food anymore. I’ve worked too hard to conserve both that I refuse to let them go to waste.
There’s also the value in sharing. When my children whine about having to give to others, I start the sentence, “Everything we have is for” and they finish with “sharing.” Granted, sometimes their responses sound reluctant. But I’m teaching them a valuable lesson about conserving and giving to others. We are more freed up to donate money or food than we would otherwise be.
Whatever your reasons, make sure you believe them whole-heartedly. This money-saving process is challenging, and requires discipline, attention and perseverance. It will take a lot of time. It is now your job.
It’s totally worth it.
Do you feel upset or stuck when you think about your finances? Are you ready to change the way you shop, spend and save? Worksheet templates are provided to help you through each step of this process:
*Take inventory of your life, your possessions, and your goals.
*Track spending and set up a reasonable budget.
*Find, store and combine coupons for maximum savings.
*Build a collection of resources on the web for cheap and free stuff.
*Use strategies to find cheap and free stuff in your community, including thrift stores and grocery stores.

Read more about LIVE CHEAP AND FREE! Strategies to Thrive in Tough Economic Times and Kelly Wilson HERE.

Copyright 2008 Kelly Wilson. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Excerpt

Another weekend came and I made an
appointment for my mother and I to get makeovers at a
local department store. Matt and Bradley came with us
along with my father. We decided to go out for dinner
after. Well the previous night I again had gotten no sleep.
All I can remember is that all through the makeover I was
so anxious. It was like I could feel the blood just running
through my veins. I could not relax. We went to dinner
and I could not eat; I just could not swallow any food. My
mother would even make comments to me that she could
tell that it looked like I could not catch my breath. I was
always trying to catch my breath. I thought for sure that
night I would get some sleep. However, I did not. The
next morning, Monday, I called my doctor and told the
nurses that I had to come in. This was the end of August.

Since throughout this whole period I kept asking
myself, “Do I have postpartum depression?” I do not
think that I am “depressed.” I took a shower every day,
put on my makeup, and got on with my daily activities. I
actually kept referring back to all my pregnancy books
and looked up postpartum depression and kept reading
the meanings that they had. I just kept asking myself, “Is
this what is wrong with me?”

Read more about MY BABY’S SMILE: My Journey and Recovery Through Postpartum Depression and Beth Ann Benoliel HERE.

Copyright 2008 Beth Ann Benoliel. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Excerpt
Chapter One

THE CONCEPT OF THE CHILD WITHIN

…the child symbolizes the pre-conscious and the
post-conscious essence of man.
C.G. Jung

When I was a little girl, my family lived near a reservoir called Puddingstone Dam.  It was used for recreational fishing, boating, and swimming by the local communities.  On hot summer days my Mother, two sisters, and I would wait for Daddy to come home from work then head off for our favorite swimming spot.  The water deepened gradually where we swam, so I was able to “fake it” for many years.  You see, I was almost nine years old before learning to really swim.
I will never forget how much I wanted to please my Father by swimming across the roped-off area.  Even my younger sister was swimming and diving off the raft out in the deep end by three years old!  I desperately wanted to receive the praise and smiles she was commanding from Daddy.  I was so afraid to bring both my feet up to kick that for many years I would keep one foot on the bottom while kicking on the surface with the other foot making it look like I was swimming.  Then one summer Daddy decided to test me.  He literally picked me up and threw me into the deep water.  I immediately learned to swim with both feet kicking high!
What I remember most about this swimming episode was not the trauma of how I learned to swim but my “feelings” surrounding the need for Daddy’s approval.  As a child, I would have done anything he asked to get his approval and I did.  He was a big-hearted, self-engrossed alcoholic and I bought right into the typical codependent, self-effacing, self-sacrificing role of the child adult, later becoming an adult child.
Through my adult years, I studied, researched, analyzed, have been analyzed, and worked with my personal childhood trauma resulting from living in a dysfunctional family.  I learned a great deal about my child within and the different concepts for healing and recovery.  During the 1980s to present, I have been fortunate to experience and clinically introduce a healing process which directly addresses the phenomenon of healing the wounded inner child.  Whether seeking recovery from drug or alcohol abuse, codependency, victimization, physical, emotional or spiritual abuse, or the trauma of living in a dysfunctional family, Re-Creation Therapy may be the long awaited guidance for which you have been searching.
Can you remember your childhood?  Can you consciously recall a particular age and sense your emotions at that time in your life?  If you were asked to close your eyes and visualize yourself at the age of five or twelve, could you sense or see yourself at this age?  Can you imagine the surroundings where you grew up and/or the emotions you felt?  Can you remember the qualities you liked or disliked about your mother, father, relatives, teachers, or friends during your childhood years?  There may be several different memories within each year of your childhood.  All these, as well as, the ones you do not recall are held tight within your subconscious mind by your child within.
As we become adults, we learn to put aside our childhood, believing it to be over and that the past no longer matters.  However, the child within us still plays, laughs, cries, yells, desires attention and needs love.  Our inner child is usually adventuresome, curious, fearful and nervous, inventive, caring and compassionate; but most importantly, it is a part of us.  The experiential exercises, visualizations, and techniques within this book will help you rediscover your child within, which in turn will lead you to forgotten memories, unfulfilled dreams, past woundedness, and outmoded beliefs which may be blocking a more creative, successful adult life.

Conceptual Background

The concept of the inner child is not a new one.  When renowned psychotherapist Carl G. Jung talked of the “inner child archetype,” he was referring to the universal unconscious mindset found within the “Collective Unconscious.”  However, Jung also noted an individual inner child, a child which actually exists within each adult.  Jung explained, “The child motif is a picture of certain forgotten things in our childhood…. [it] represents the preconscious, childhood aspect of the collective psyche.”
One noted psychoanalyst of the 1950s, Eric Berne, spoke of the aspect of the “child” as one of the ego components in his Transactional Analysis (TA) process.  The other two ego components of TA are the “parent” and the “adult.”  Berne’s TA theory of human personality demonstrates how each ego state directs our individual lives.  Berne’s intent was to find “the briefest, most economical way for his clients to increase their autonomy by reawakening their potential for awareness, spontaneity, and intimacy capacities which are inherent in all of us, but which are sometimes limited as a result of the stresses and traumas of growing up.”
Many feel Berne’s personality theory to be a close glimpse of the child within concept but disagree with Berne’s labeling the inner child an “ego state.”  Perhaps the word ego is too strong when describing these three personality components and the term “aspect” might be more suitable to denote the fine line divisions between the adult, parent, and child selves.  These three aspects are parts of our personality and are linked to an “inner core”,  ”the higher spiritual-self” which is most readily connected to the child within.
Charles Whitfield, doctor and author, introduces the “healing nature” of the child within through the recovery process found in the widely emerging Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACoAs) groups.  In his book, Healing the Child Within: Discovery and Recovery for Adult Children of Dysfunctional Families, Whitfield states, “When the Child Within is not nurtured or allowed freedom of expression, a false or codependent self emerges.  We begin to live our lives from a victim stance, and experience difficulties in resolving emotional traumas.  The gradual accumulation of unfinished mental and emotional business can lead to chronic anxiety, fear, confusion, emptiness and unhappiness.”
We can recapture our emotional stability and independence-of-self by allowing ourselves to remember, experience, and communicate with this hidden child within who learned so aptly to adapt to his or her environment as a means of tactical survival.  During a workshop I attended (May 1990) Whitfield commented that most alcoholics start out being a “child adult” learning to cope with many adult responsibilities as a child, then later, they become an “adult child.”
There are many therapists who have given us insight into the concept of the child within, one such master of hypnosis is Milton Erickson.  Erickson was one of the earliest founders of the child within concept via his renown work with Hypnotherapy.  His research and clinical work with literally thousands of patients has revealed truly miraculous techniques and methods for healing and recovery.
One of Erickson’s more noted case histories exploring the child within is that of “The February Man” in which he draws on psychotherapeutic age regression techniques.  One of his methods surrounding this important work is the hypnotic tool of “reframing” (developing new frames of reference for the past).  Erickson demonstrates just how inseparable the mind/body phenomenon is in this case of a client who has a fear of being able to adequately raise her child-to-be because of her lack of secure familial ties in childhood.
During therapy, Erickson introduced to his client’s “subconscious mind” a friend, a confidant.  This fatherly figure was brought into the age regression sessions while she was in a hypnotic state.  Over a succession of meetings, Erickson repeatedly employed techniques of age regression incorporated with an amnesia effect so his client would not recall this fictitious acquaintance in a conscious waking state of mind.  The use of age regression facilitated Erickson’s success in generating past real-life memories which were intertwined with the use of indirect hypnotic suggestions regarding the fictional “February Man” (later named because he had met this client in the month of February).
Erickson demonstrated perfectly with this case that there is no separation of mind/body for change in belief structure precedes the body’s experience.  In other words, belief precedes experience and change.  When Erickson’s client firmly embraced on a subconscious level that she had been aided and cared for by the February Man in her childhood, she was able to re-create her fear and apprehension into stability and confidence in her ability to raise her unborn child.
Re-Creation Therapy employs a form of Hypnotherapy which incorporates the main theme of age regression and reframing employed by Erickson.  This process can be executed alone by using self-hypnosis (autohypnosis) or with the assistance of a Hypnotherapist.  This emotional release therapy introduces tools to acknowledge, meet, and communicate with one’s inner child.  A new frame of reference is established which brings with it a clear, enlightened view of who you are becoming.
You can release limiting emotions, fears, and inappropriate patterns which bind you to your parents and the learned behavior of the past.  While in the state of guided hypnosis, or within autohypnosis, a new element of reference can be introduced to the subconscious mind.  An unpleasant event can be re-created into a positive experience; or you can re-create a totally different scenario altogether to wash away old fears, rejections, or childhood turmoil.  As with Erickson’s re-framing methods which made it “…possible to introduce a new element not actually belonging to the situation but that could easily fit into it,” the process of Re-Creation Therapyâ„¢ allows you to touch the hidden past of your child within and re-create your own reality making it suitable to you now as an adult.

Copyright 2008 Barbara Sinor. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Excerpt
Chapter 1
Why Kinky Sex?
Why kinky sex?  Because it’s just plain fun.  The heat and passion that can be generated from some of the simplest, silliest and craziest things can be scorching-hot and exciting.  The adrenaline gets pumping, the heart starts thumping, and the rush that comes over you when you engage in something that is so exhilarating is indescribable.
I know from firsthand experience that the above is true.  If you’re lucky, as I am, to be blessed with a man who is not only a willing partner but a masterful initiator (but even if this is not your situation) kinky sex can bring some of the most intense pleasure you will ever experience.
Kinky sex has enhanced my life and sex life and added loads of fun to everyday things.  While I have had the pleasure of kinky sex in my life for many years, it wasn’t until I fully embraced it that I realized what powerful heat and passion it could bring.  It gives me a sense of living on the edge, and it makes me feel adventurous and daring.  It’s just an awesome feeling for both you and your partner.
Kinky sex takes sex to a level where sex should be.  It allows you to take a journey that could last from minutes to hours to days and when you really get the concept of kinky sex, you’ll realize it’s more about the journey than the end.
The journey consists of a variety of things.  Some things are just playful and fun, while others can be hot, intense, and daring.
Sometimes the journey can be over in a matter of minutes, and sometimes it’s extended over a period of time where you push it to be edge and back multiple times culminating in an explosive, passionate ending.  As stated above, it is more about the journey than the end, but the end ain’t bad either.
Kinky sex is something that can be done anytime, anywhere, and often in such a subtle way that only you and your partner know about it.  It just adds spice to life.
I can give you many reasons for why you should enjoy kinky sex, but I find it very difficult, if not impossible, to come up with a single reason as to why one would not participate in something that has the ability to make a relationship more fulfilling than it would have been without it.
If you’ll open up your mind and let creative thoughts in, I believe, you will find the rewards to be well worth it.

Read more about The Joy of Kinky and Spicy Sex by Alana Grey HERE.

Copyright 2008 Alana Grey. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Excerpt

Author’s Foreword

This is an exciting time.  We’re a world in transition.  We are in the process of advancing human consciousness.  A more spiritual approach to living is emerging in our society.  We’re coming to see that there is more to life than the physical world and are beginning to acknowledge the nonphysical aspect of our being”the Causal Self, the Soul.  Science and religion are merging as we see that spiritual laws and scientific laws are the same.  They both explain how the Universe operates.  They both point to an understanding that everything that exists is made up of energy, including us.  And so, it is no accident that the Law of Attraction has recently become the subject of mainstream media.
Although the Law of Attraction is currently one of the hottest topics in the personal development field, it is also a law that has been in existence since time immemorial and is no secret to the many that have lived remarkable and spiritually meaningful lives.  The mass success of Rhonda Byrne’s The Secret and its contemporaries has now made this spiritual knowledge accessible to millions who are attempting to use it to have, be, and do anything that they desire.  This is a remarkable step in the expansion of our collective consciousness, but it is not the highest use of the Law of Attraction.
We’re just not there yet.  This is a tender time in humanity’s evolution. The Law of Attraction is being presented and used with a consciousness that is still firmly rooted in perceiving the world through the 5 senses.  It’s seen as a magical formula for feeding the desires of the personality and not the desires of the Soul.  I plead guilty to being one of those presenters myself.  In my first book, The Beginner’s Guide to Abundance, I explained how to use the Law of Attraction to attain material fulfillment.  But in my own growth I have come to discover that this is not its highest use.  This book is an attempt to expand upon my earlier teachings and to explore exactly what this higher use is.
To navigate the Law of Attraction for our greater good, we  must first become the masters of our minds and the slaves of our hearts.  We’ve made a long history of worshiping the power and aptitude of the human mind and of diminishing the perception and compassion of the heart.  Reason above intuition, control above passion, will above reverence, individuality above oneness”¦.We’ve mixed up our masters, surely, and we’re hurting and powerless as a result.  The mind was never meant to be in charge.  That role belongs to the heart.  That is why “Love is the great work,” why “Happiness is the great work.”
When you learn to let your heart rule and your mind serve, you’ll lift up your humanity to a new level.  You’ll align yourself with your Soul’s intention and use the Law of Attraction as it was meant to be used, to fulfill that intention.  This will delight your Soul to no end.  And in delighting your Soul, you will delight in this wondrous, precious life of yours.
Helping you learn how to navigate this shift from mind to heart and from personality to Soul, so that you may use the Law of Attraction to live a life of purpose, joy, and spiritual as well as material fulfillment, is my intention for this book.  May these ideas inspire you, challenge you, and most of all delight you!

-Melody

Chapter One: The Purpose of Your Life

Here is a fascinating tidbit of truth: you are not really a human being made of flesh and bone.  You are made of energy.  You are on this Earth, but you are not of it.  The true you is an energetic being, a being of light, an eternal nonphysical entity joyfully romping in the human experience.  This true being, what many call the Higher Self, the Subconscious, or the Soul, is the real you.  The human you is nothing more than a fine tool sculpted by the nonphysical you, perfectly honed for the achievement of a particular task.  In other words, your life has a purpose.  Your purpose is to help the nonphysical you achieve its purpose.
Contrary to what many perceive, your Soul does not leave the nonphysical world to become you and then return to the nonphysical realm when you die.  It merely reduces part of itself into you.  Much of its attention remains focused on its nonphysical life while at the same time a small part of it is focused on you here.  Thus you both exist simultaneously.  An analogy to help you grasp this is to imagine your Soul as a sun.  You are one of this sun’s rays.  You are part of this sun and possess all of its elements and characteristics, but you are shining as a distinct ray pointed in a specific direction.  This sun has all sorts of other rays (other lives) shining in other directions too; but you cannot see them, or the total sun of you, from your individual ray perspective.
Your Soul is incarnated into innumerable lives and forms, each one having its own deliberate purpose that is quite different from yours, each resulting in growth, in expansion.  From your perspective here in time and space you refer to these as past lives, but time and space do not exist in the nonphysical and so it is all really happening at once.  Your past lives, present life, and future lives are all there as those sunrays, right now.  When your consciousness leaves your body and returns to its Soul source, you will be able to see the totality of all of these lives and know the full experience of Who-You-Are.  To know this now, however, would only confuse your specific purpose for this lifetime as a human being, as an individuated aspect of Soul.
The Soul itself is an individuated aspect of the Universe.  The Universe is one continuous, eternal, ever-expanding flow of energy, and this energy is intelligent.  It is conscious.  It delights in its infinite expression and expansion.  How many ways can energy be expressed and experienced?  There are infinite variations to be born.  And your Soul, the true you, is one of those variations.  It is Universal energy in a reduced, concentrated form, and its purpose is to expand the Universe through its many experiences.  You, following suit, are Soul energy in a reduced, concentrated form.
Can you see then, what an amazing thing you are?  Can you see how great your purpose is?  You are not here to lead a passive life.  The Universe needs you!  The Universe cannot expand itself, cannot experience itself, without the Soul.  Your Soul cannot expand itself, cannot experience itself, without you.  You help your Soul experience specific aspects of itself that it has yet to experience fully.  You also help the Soul contribute aspects of itself that it has already experienced, so that it may help other Souls in their quest for growth and expansion.  This is what is meant by the term Soul Purpose.  Soul Purpose is always twofold.  There is the Soul’s own quest for growth, and there is its gift of growth to others.
How can you know your Soul’s purpose for your lifetime?  How can you find out what aspects of itself it wants to experience?  How can you know what aspects of itself it wishes to share?  In other words: What should you be learning?  What should you be contributing?  The answer to these two questions is deceptively simple.  Joseph Campbell, the great mythologist,   summarized everything you need to know about your life purpose in one simple and beautiful phrase: Follow your Bliss.  Find and do what brings you joy.  Learn to think, feel and act in ways that cause joy to flow through you.  The way to your purpose is through joy.  Joy is the “code” that Soul and you agreed to before you incarnated into physical form, the way your Soul would communicate to you that you were “on track.”  When you are experiencing joy, you and your Soul are in perfect alignment, you are powerfully co-manifesting what your Soul desires to experience.  When you are not experiencing joy
you are at odds with your Soul’s intentions.
You see, your Soul communicates with you through emotions.  That is the language you agreed to use before being born.  That is why you have emotions: to be able to communicate with the nonphysical part of you while you are out here in physical space and time.  Isn’t that fabulous?  You have an inner guide with you always, telling you if you are off course or on course by the way that you feel.  When you feel good, in all its forms from contentment to gratitude to bliss, that is your Soul telling you, “Yes!  I agree with this.  Yes!  You are on purpose.  Yes!  You are thinking or acting in alignment with me.  We are functioning as a team.”  When you feel bad, in all its forms from insecurity to rage to boredom, that is your Soul telling you, “I am not in agreement.  You are off-track.  You are not on purpose.  We are not in alignment.”
And there is more even than this to the story.  In addition to emotion, you also have intention.  Everything around you that you see on this Earth has been manifested through intention.  The Universe sculpts its energy through intention.  Your Soul manifested you through intention, and you have the very same ability.  Energy converts to matter through intention.  Did you know that everything in your life, every thought, every emotion, every experience, has been manifested by you?  That you intended all of it into being?  You are manifesting all of the time through your intention, but usually you do so at the subconscious level and so are not consciously aware of it.  Without this creative power of intention you would not be able to fulfill your Soul’s purpose.
What a cruel joke it would be to set you down upon the Earth and not give you any power to control your own life experiences!  You are not here to be a victim to the wheels of fate.  You are not here to struggle.  You are not here to long for something and then not receive it.  You are here to delight in this purposeful life of yours and to delight your Soul in the process.  You are here to be, to have, and to do those things that fulfill your Soul’s purpose” and you have the power to manifest all of those things deliberately by focusing your intention.
“Why then” you say, “do I experience so many things I don’t want?”  If you are not striving to align your energy, your consciousness, with Soul Consciousness, if you are intending on auto-pilot rather than through active choice, if you are sacrificing your authenticity in order to fit in to your world instead of influencing your world, if you are operating from a place of self-doubt or blame, if you are not seeing every experience as a choice point between serving the personality or serving the Soul, then you will indeed experience many things you do not wish to experience because you are not on purpose.  You are misusing the powers your Soul gave you, the powers of emotion and intention.
Most of us don’t use our emotions as they were meant to be used, as messages from Soul designed to keep us on track before we end up creating something we don’t want.  Instead, we use our emotions as after the fact indicators to tell us whether what we’ve already intended into being is pleasing to us or not.  That is the first error.  Secondly, most of us are not consciously choosing our thoughts, beliefs, feelings, or experiences.  Instead of manifesting intentionally, we allow ourselves to become slaves to our minds and it intends everything without our awareness.  Then, when we look at what we’ve manifested, we let that same mind convince us of our own sense of victimhood and powerlessness.  The result of all this unconscious intention is that life looks like a random mix up of wanted and unwanted experiences.
But take heart!  Your life is not meant to happen willy-nilly and it is not meant to be unfulfilling.  You are here as an emissary of your Soul, endowed with all the qualities and the powers that it possesses.  While you are here, you are always in communication with your nonphysical Self via your emotions.  In your pursuit of joy, you can discover your mission.  Similarly, through the conscious use of your own mind, your own imagination, your own intention, and your own attention, you can deliberately manifest the experiences that allow you to fulfill that mission.
Knowing this truth, and succeeding in it, is the purpose of your life.  What remains to be told is how you go about doing this.  There is a Universal Law in operation that assists you in this process.  It is called the Law of Attraction and your Soul is a master at navigating it.  Understanding how it works and learning to navigate it consciously, as well as conscientiously, is the key to experiencing the joyful, purposeful, and fulfilling life that you were meant to live.  Before this can be achieved with any success, however, you must first walk the path of authenticity.  Authenticity is about bringing your unconscious intentions into the light, and this is healing, harrowing, vital, and freeing work indeed.

Read more about Delighting the Soul: Lessons on Life Purpose, Authenticity and the Law of Attraction and Melody Larson HERE.

Copyright 2008 Melody Larson. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

Excerpt

Taking Charge of Your Life

How do you live your life? At cause or at effect? It is important to be aware of this distinction. It is the rare individual who always lives his or her life at cause, however far too many of us live a large portion of our lives at effect — responding to the whims, desires or emotional states of others.

Being at cause means that you are decisive in creating what you want in life and take responsibility for what you have achieved or will achieve. You see the world as a place of opportunity and you move towards achieving what you desire. If things are not unfolding as you would like, you take action and explore other possibilities. Above all, you know you have choice in what you do and how you react to people and events.

If you are at effect you may blame others or circumstances for your bad moods or for what you have not achieved or for your life in general. You may feel powerless or depend on others in order for you to feel good about yourself or about life — If only my spouse, my boss, my coworkers, my parents, my children, understood me and helped me achieve my dreams or did what I wanted or what is best for me, then life would be great. If you wait and hope for things to be different or for others to provide, then you are at effect or a victim of circumstances. And really, how much fun is that? And how much fun do you think it is for others to be around you? Believing that someone else is responsible or making them responsible for your happiness or your different moods is very limiting and gives this person some mystical power over you, which can cause you a great deal of anguish.

Being at cause means you have choices in your life — you can choose what is best for you while ensuring the choice is ecological for those around you, those in your community and your society. That is, you consider the consequences of your actions on others, while not taking responsibility for their emotional well-being — believing you are responsible for the emotional well-being of someone else places a heavy burden on you and can cause a great deal of stress.

Those who live their lives at effect often see themselves or live their lives as victims with no choices whatsoever. The irony is that they do have choice and they have chosen not to choose but to be responsive to whatever is given to them.

Do I always live my life at cause? No, not a chance. The vast majority of the time I live at cause. When I don’t, one of the following usually comes to mind: ‘There is no failure only feedback’ or ‘There are no unresourceful people, only unresourceful states’. Then using various personal growth techniques, such as those from NLP (neurolinguistic programming), I am able to explore other ways to achieve my outcomes or ask others for help, without being a victim to their answers.

Each morning when you get up, you can either ask yourself, “I wonder what my day will bring,” or “What do I choose to bring to my day?” The choice is yours.

Copyright 2008 Roger Ellerton. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.