Spiritual Development Archives

Opening Up to Possibility

Today I am finding myself sitting by the ocean as I’m typing. Instead of sweltering in the Arizona sun, I am enjoying San Diego’s cooler, breezy summer weather. I’m not on vacation. I just realized sometime last week that I didn’t have to endure 110 degree temperatures if I didn’t want to. What’s the point of having a mobile business if I never take advantage of being able to work from anywhere with an Internet connection?

And yet, I’d never gone anywhere else to simply work, just as I would from home. Sure, I traveled to go to conferences and workshops … but just to get the heck out of town, taking my regular client and class load with me? Quite frankly, I never thought spending the money on airfare and hotel would be worth it, just for the change of scenery.

I was wrong.

Now that I’m sitting here, endless possibilities have suddenly opened up … and I’ve been here for exactly three hours! A single walk on the beach while talking to a client, and my outlook on life has changed.

Leaves turning in New England in October? I want to be there!

Fireside on a snowy mountaintop in the winter? Yes, sign me up.

The crazy part is that I’ve had this mobility available to me for about a year now … and never really bothered to explore all the possibilities it offered.

We all have untapped possibilities in our lives – things we could do and explore, if only we dared overcome the inertia of doing what we’ve always done. We talk ourselves out of what’s possible, because it seems impractical, or perhaps not the most reasonable choice. Why spend the time, money and effort on going to San Diego when I could simply work from home?

Because, whenever we do something new, we are transformed.

What have you always wanted to do, but held off because it just wasn’t practical?

What have you told yourself could wait – until the kids are out of school, until after your sister’s wedding, until your business has grown a bit?

Possibility lurks in every corner of our lives, ready for us to bring forth something new and different – to try it on for size and see if it fits. Whether that possibility is a trip or a craft project or a business venture, it holds transformational power. Explore a new possibility, and you will experience yourself in a different way.

What possibility can you step into?

Blessings,
Andrea

Unexpected Packaging

Quite often when we manifest what we ask for, it arrives in unexpected packaging. The result of our requests look like nothing we’d ever imagined. Requests for money show up us business opportunities we would have never in a million years considered. We find ourselves in relationships with people we would have considered unlikely at best. Or what we ask for arrives at the most unexpected times, in the most unexpected places.

Why does the Universe have this stealthy way of delivering what we’ve asked for?

It has to do with attachment. I’ve written about this plenty of times – like the watched kettle that never boils, the active “wanting” energy of attachment actually makes manifesting our intention less likely.

Life finds ways of delivering what we want when we’re not looking. In its infinitely abundant way, the Universe will find the unobserved nook or cranny in our lives, where we’re not really placing our expectations or attachment. Inevitably, that’s the route through which manifesting will occur.

If we’re particularly attached to the packaging – we want what we ask for to look a certain way, to come in through a specific door of opportunity – we might easily miss the miracle that has occurred. We may be so busy looking in the direction of expected results that we disregard what has been created for us right under our noses.

Once we make a request and take appropriate action, it’s important to cultivate an attitude of curiosity. Look at what shows up – does its energy match the energy of your initial request? Can you look beyond the unexpected packaging and witness your own ability to manifest what you want?

Blessings,
Andrea

Manifesting Fear

In a class for my Soul Realignment Practitioners the other day, I was speaking about how attachment gets in the way of manifesting what we want. Ester and Jerry Hicks talk about this phenomenon, as does Neale Donald Walsh. The wanting of a thing usually attracts more and more wanting, rather than attracting the thing itself. In this way, attachment actually pushes what we want away from us.

This got me thinking about fear.

It seems to me that fear of something will also attract more fear …. but also will not allow for the manifesting of what we fear. After all, fear is a sort of polarized version of attachment. It is an extreme aversion, an attachment to something NOT happening. So if we fear something, while we may create more and more fear of the thing over time, it’s highly unlikely that what we fear will manifest itself.

This perspective might put to rest the fear of fear itself, which I see time and again in clients and students. Just the other day I spoke to a client who felt that her fear of failure in her business might actually attract the very failure she feared. She was fighting two battles – one to keep her business afloat, and the other to keep her fear at bay. The second was a complete drain of her energy. Once she realized that it was okay to be afraid, she was able to start focusing on what she wanted to create, rather than on banishing fear.

The idea of a fearless human experience is highly improbable and perhaps not even desirable! In fact, while fear may create more fear, it actually may also make it impossible for the things we fear to manifest themselves. It strikes me as an odd sort of energetic self-protection mechanism that we have been gifted with.

I am, of course, not advocating a fearful existence for anyone. But fear can be yet another voice of our inner wisdom, directing us away from what we don’t want, so we can redirect our attentions towards what we wish to create. Most of all, we need not be afraid of fear itself. Through fear, more fear may arise. But by being afraid, we do not call our fears into existence.

Honor your fears. Rather than trying to diminish the feeling of fear, listen to it. What is it trying to tell you? What are you trying hard to avoid? Ask yourself what you wish to create instead. Set your intentions on what you do want, ask for spiritual assistance … and let it go. Attachment can extend itself to an attachment of feeling only positive emotions. “Shoulding” ourselves into feeling something other than what is true for us in the moment only drains our energy.

There is nothing to fear about fear itself.

Blessings,
Andrea

Dust off Your Magic Wand

Whether at age four or forty, we’ve all at one time or another wished for a magic wand – or at least a fairy godmother in possession thereof – that could in one swift move alter our life circumstances to meet our every desire. We’ve all wished for situations to simply go away, or for a heap of money to magically appear in our bank account, or for Mr. or Mrs. Right to land on our doorstep.

What we often forget is that we already HAVE a magic wand! We have always had the power to magically transform our circumstances. It’s just that this magic wand is so ordinary, so commonplace, that we’ve stopped appreciating it. Some of us only dust it off on occasion, when things get really bad. Some of us refuse to utilize our magic wand altogether, because we are afraid of its power.

Our magic wand consists of two elements: Intention and free will. Like I said … perfectly ordinary. And yet, full of power.

Bear with me here.

If you had a literal magic wand, you’d still have to decide what you want to create, right? You’d still need to set a clear intention, or your magical wand might wreak complete havoc!

You’d also still have to decide to USE your magic wand. You’d have to impose your free will on the status quo of your current experience, and choose something different.

There’s having a magic wand. Then there’s knowing what you want to do with it. And then there’s the choice to pick it up and actually use it.

Once we decide what we want, and decide to exercise our free will and actually create it … well, if you look at the various actions this requires, most of them are no more difficult than waving a magic wand. Because even a magic wand requires us to commit to a choice.

Let’s say you want to start your own business and want to create a website. Lots of my clients find themselves in this situation. If you think of “creating a website” but know nothing about the Internet, this task my seem intimidating or difficult.

But is it really?

We know how to get online – easy.

We know how to google “easy website” – easy.

There’s tons of services that will help us build a website quickly, without programming. Looking at a couple of these services – easy.

Choosing a service, knowing that we can always change our mind – easy.

Putting a few words together to put on the pages – some people get hung up here. But, really, we all use words every day. We all know how to write a sentence. We all know how to write a paragraph. It might not be the best paragraph ever written, but when we break it down to its simplest elements and realize we can edit it later – easy.

When we’ve exercised our magic wand of intent and free will a few dozen times, we suddenly have a business of our very own. And when we look at the small, individual actions that were required, we realize they were all actually as easy as waving a magic wand.

We have all this power, wrapped up in the magic of intention and free will. If we let go of the need to do it all perfectly and all at once, what we can create is nothing short of stunning. Sure, if we try to make the hundreds of choices that go into creating a website all at once, if we see it as a single undertaking, we won’t know where to start. But if we focus on the next immediate choice, the one that’s right before us, and make that choice … it all becomes easy. And then we move on to the next immediate choice, and the next. Easy. And the best thing is that we HAVE a magic wand. Almost everything can be changed, or undone.

Dust off that magic wand. Create what you want, one small exercise of intent and free will at a time. Before you know it, you will be living in a different reality – one of your own choosing.

Blessings,
Andrea

Aligning with Abundance

Need to align with abundance … even when abundance seems out of reach? There’s always SOMETHING available to us that allows us to shift into the energy of Divine Abundance. Simply taking new action will often create a new energetic state within our Being … one that will also attract new circumstances!

Note that NEW action is what’s required … so don’t do what you’re already doing! The actions you take every day align you exactly to the amount of abundance already present in your life. If you’re going to attract something different from your current reality, shaking up your routine and doing things differently is required.

But that doesn’t always have to look like a major undertaking! Here are a few ideas for you. Mind you, what is representative of abundance is entirely subjective. You have to do new things that feel abundant to YOU. But this list might spark a few ideas of your own!

  1. Drive somewhere beautiful with a great view. Take in the width and breadth of the vast scenery before you.
  2. Cook yourself a three-course meal. Or, if you have kids and have been living on macaroni and cheese, just cook yourself a “grown-up” meal. Make is something YOU like … never mind any of your family members. They can order themselves a pizza.
  3. Go to some art galleries and soak up beauty.
  4. Put on some good music and take two minutes to dance around in your living room. Enjoy the ability of your body to move and groove.
  5. Buy fresh flowers … or pick some! Bring the lushness of the outdoors inside.
  6. Set a beautiful table for your next meal. Bring out the cloth napkins, light some candles … even if you’re just having take-out.
  7. Get up, make yourself your favorite morning beverage, and take it BACK TO BED, along with a great book.
  8. Take a very long bubble-bath.
  9. Upgrade one of your “usual” grocery items. Get something organic instead of regular, some fancy artisan bread or a better bottle of wine. Spending just a couple of dollars more can make you feel luxurious.
  10. Overdress. Who cares if you’re on a beer budget? If there’s a fancy outfit lurking in the back of your closet that you never get to wear … wear it! Dress for dinner as if there will be champagne!

While this may seem like a fun exercise to do, you may actually find that it takes quite a bit of effort. We naturally want to stay in the energetic state we’re accustomed to. It’s where we are comfortable. When push comes to shove, we may do what we’ve always done because we “don’t feel like” doing something different. Of course we don’t – “different” is not part of our current energetic state. If it were, we’d already be doing it!

However, you will find that when you make a daily effort to take a new abundant action, you WILL begin attracting different results! Try it for a week … leave a comment and let me know how it’s working for you!

Blessings,
Andrea

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