5 Powerful Life Principles at the Heart of Everything

“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” ~ George Bernard Shaw

The power of personal creation is probably the most profound ability that human beings possess outside of our capacity for love.

At our core we are creative beings. We only have to look at the world around us and back through our history at how we have developed storytelling, music, art and culture, industry, inventions, architecture and transport to know that our unbounded curiosity, inventiveness and ideas have shaped our evolution thus far.

But beyond these collective creations that are part of our everyday life each person on the planet has the potential to create the life of their dreams. This capacity to manifest what we want (or don’t want) is more highly developed in some than others, and maybe in particular areas, not necessarily the entirety of their lives.

We may look at someone who appears to be successful on the outside, but we don’t know what other circumstances are lurking in their life. It’s a waste of time comparing ourselves to others, because we are each on our own journey (albeit crossing paths now and then).

I’ve had some challenging creations and circumstances to deal with lately, and so have been on a mission to create more of what I want and less of what I don’t want. In my quest to improve my power of personal creation I came across several different teachers that have helped me to understand where I am, and more importantly, where I’m going!

“The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want and if they can’t find them, make them.” ~ George Bernard Shaw

I wanted to share some of my insights with you in this post, in the hope that they might benefit you as they have me in my time of need.

5 Powerful Life Principles

  1. The energy of attraction, which is our expression of divinity. It has been labelled as the ‘law of attraction’ and it gives us power.
  2. The law of opposites, which gives us opportunity.
  3. The gift of wisdom, which gives us discernment.
  4. The joy of wonder, which gives us imagination.
  5. The presence of cycles, which gives us eternity.

These life principles are the mechanisms of manifestation, regulating the process of personal creation, by which we can express ourselves in thought, word and deed. These principles are a continuous source of power, continuously on, whether we are conscious of them or not.

The power of personal creation

The energy of attraction has been espoused for millennia, in various instructions and descriptions. You’ll no doubt recognise some of these:

“As you sow, so shall you reap.”

“As a man thinketh in his heart so is he.”

“Keep your thoughts positive, because your thoughts become your words. Keep your words positive, because your words become your behaviours. Keep your behaviours positive, because your behaviours become your habits. Keep your habits positive, because your habits become your values. Keep your values positive, because your values become your destiny.” ~ Gandhi

“Your imagination is your preview of life’s coming attractions.” ~ Albert Einstein

“Whether you think you can or think you can’t, either way you are right.” ~ Henry Ford

“All that we are is a result of what we have thought.” ~ Buddha

“Everyone creates realities based on their own personal beliefs. These beliefs are so powerful that they can create (expansive or entrapping) realities over and over.” ~ Kuan Yin

What you focus on, what you use the energies of life to create, you can create.

The energy of attraction:

I’ve decided to change my script and I’m working on my vision. As we grow it’s to be expected that we will fall back into old thought patterns. I was fortunate that at my lowest ebb I was in the right place at the right time to hear exactly what I needed to hear. It felt like the speaker was talking directly to me…

There were plenty of of aha! moments. I realised I hadn’t been a good gardener. I had allowed the weeds of my mind to take a strangle hold of the flowers. Because certain aspects of my life hadn’t yet worked out how I wanted them to, my sponsoring thoughts were coming from a place of lack and I had perpetuated those thoughts.

He made it clear that problems arise when we don’t have a clear vision and control over our thoughts and daily habits.  Your mind becomes more powerful where you direct its energy.

He told us to work on our recovery time from setback or defeat. That’s where I had come a cropper. What we say emotionally is deeply imprinted on our mind and comes about.

Had he been a fly on my wall?!

He asked: why don’t we do what we know to do? He told us what we needed reminding of: that we all have blocks, fears and doubts which have been created through past experiences, which influence our current decisions.

He told all of us in the room to let our negative emotions go, to shake them off. He said: “You’ll never ever, ever outperform your set autopilot.”

That’s why we have to get our sub-conscious mind working for us instead of against us. The subconscious mind cannot tell the difference between reality and an intensely imagined experience.

“The unconscious self is the real genius. Your breathing goes wrong the moment your conscious self meddles with it.” ~ George Bernard Shaw

Our thoughts and programmes will try and talk us out of our greatness. He did a hilarious sketch about getting all the committee members of our brains on board.

Captain Frontal Lobe is the cheerleader and motivator. He is up for anything. Colonel Amygdala is the cautious one, where emotions are processed, analysing all aspects of what captain frontal lobe is proposing.

General Limbic brain is the most ancient of the committee members, storing every negative or embarrassing scene from our childhood memories. Under no circumstances is he going to give his approval for us to potentially fail again. Sargent Motor Cortex is responsible for helping captain frontal lobe put his ambitious plans into action. Oh boy, it’s a maelstrom of desire, resistance and fear.

If we listen to the limbic brain we start to believe his assertions that we’re not good enough, or that we don’t deserve this. The little voice is suddenly loud and clear: Better to be safe than sorry.

Skillset Vs. Mindset

Although both are fundamental to any achievement, skillset is much less important that mindset. Success is 80% mindset and 20% skillset.

I have vivid memories of learning to swim when I was eight years old. My father used to try to eliminate my fear of water by throwing me in to pool, but that didn’t work.  It made me scream and run and frustrated him. When I was left to my own devices I would aim to move through the water just by tiny increments.

I would then move a little further away from the side each time and swim back to the wall. My skill level hadn’t significantly improved after each attempt, but what did grow was my self-belief. I just decided that I was going to make it to the side. It wasn’t graceful; my arms and legs were thrashing about and I was spluttering, but as my mindset became more positive so my skills grew in tandem.

I went very quickly from being terrified of water to a confident and competent swimmer. Action cures fear. Doing the thing we fear innoculates us against that fear.

The Law of Opposites

Once I understood this principle I was able to see my circumstances objectively, I could see how I had hoodwinked myself.

Another spiritual teacher explained it this way: In the absence of that which you are not; that which you are is not.

I had to really think about that. Essentially the law of opposites is a contextual field that exists in order for us to create.

The moment we invoke the law of attraction and focus on something we wish to be, do, or have, the law of opposites comes into play. In our two dimensional physical reality everything is polarised. We cannot experience love without hate, happiness without sadness, hope without despair, hot without cold, positive without negative, peace without war.

“He who has never hoped can never despair.” ~ George Bernard Shaw

If you take away the opposite of something it cannot exist experientially. So the moment we decide we are going to achieve a certain goal or dream, we immediately experience that which is not our goal/dream. The exact opposite turns up.

We might assume that the law of attraction does not work for us, only for others, because we have attracted the very antithesis of what we wanted. This is where I had got stuck. It’s easy in this stage to feel discouraged or to assume that we can’t do it. We buy into the illusion that we are not supposed to have it, or tell ourselves it’s not meant to be.

He used the acronym SATAN: Saying Anything As Negative.

However, the very appearance of these experiential opposites proves that we are indeed successfully using the law of attraction. The two cannot exist without each other.

This made me feel a whole lot better!

Whatever we set our minds and hearts to in life there will be challenges. That is a given. The universe will require us to go deeper, to learn that failure isn’t really failure, to believe without doubt and to ‘judge not by appearances’.

Our circumstances can change for the better if we don’t get bogged down in them when they are less than easy or uncomfortable for us.

On the path to greatness we are going to face obstacles and enemies. But if we can move from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiasm we will prevail.

Sergio Garcia was widely considered the best golfer in the world never to have won a major. But in April in Augusta he won the daddy of major’s, The Masters. This was after 19 years of professional competition. It was his moment. He was patient and persistent.

“A Native American elder once described his own inner struggles in this manner: Inside of me there are two dogs. One of the dogs is mean and evil. The other dog is good. The mean dog fights the good dog all the time. When asked which dog wins, he reflected for a moment and replied, The one I feed the most.” ~ George Bernard Shaw

Don’t let discouragement stop you in your tracks or make you change your intention. Give yourself permission to continue to call forth that which you wish to create.

The Gift of Wisdom

This gift is utilised when the Law of Opposites presents its effect in your daily life. When you have magnetised and contextualised your creations you get to discern and decide how to manifest the life you want. Using your inner wisdom is how you remain positive in the face of what appears to be overwhelming challenges, those moments when you are faced with a reality that is anything other than what you had imagined.

Neale Donald Walsh describes a person who succumbs to this principle as ‘a magician who has forgotten his own tricks’.

Move with clarity through the contextual field and invoke the law of attraction again and again inside the contextual field that you have created. All wisdom lies within you. You know internally higher truth. Discernment allows you to see things as they really are.

“Not many people are willing to give failure a second opportunity.” ~ Joseph Sugarman

Wisdom helps us to see and accept failure as a blessing in disguise and bounce back.

Each problem that we encounter as a result of the law of opposites carries a hidden opportunity so powerful that it literally dwarfs the problem. The challenge is to be able to recognise the seed of an equivalent or greater benefit and turn it into an opportunity. The challenges are really gifts. This requires a shift in perception. There certainly have been times I wished that God wasn’t so generous!!

With wisdom we can celebrate all of life’s lessons.

I love the way Wayne Dyer explains inner wisdom in his trademark humorous style as he talks of being inside a house during a power cut and all the lights go off. He has lost his keys, but because there is a light on outside in the street he decides to look for his keys there rather than fumble around in the dark. A friend comes along and asks what he is doing. He explains that he has lost his keys and they look for them together under the street light.

Eventually the friend asks him where he last had his keys, to which Wayne replies that he had them inside his house. It’s a ludicrous scenario, yet that is what we do regularly in our thinking. We look externally for answers, when the source is inside us.

The Joy of Wonder  

All things are filled with wonder; it’s our natural state of being. Abundance isn’t what we have. It’s not about ‘stuff’, but about what we are BEING. Life is an extraordinary journey to express our real selves, our inner beings.  Heartfelt gratitude puts us in touch with the part of ourselves that has no limits. When we are grateful, we have enough and we ARE enough.

Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire; you will what you imagine; and at last you create what you will. ~ George Bernard Shaw (Back to Methuselah)

I’m constantly learning from my children, who exhibit the most enthusiastic wonderment at times. Wonder is the antidote to cynicism. Stepping out in nature is a great way to awaken wonderment. Witnessing the miracle of our planet, all the living creatures that live here with us, and indeed, the human body, the most amazing piece of equipment we will ever own. Whatever we appreciate appreciates.

The Presence of Cycles

There is no straight line in the universe. The movement of energy and mass creates the experience of infinity.  Energy cannot be destroyed, it merely changes form. There is no start and no finish, therefore patience is one of the most important elements in applying the Law of Attraction.

As much as I love the summer, I wouldn’t appreciate it as much without having experienced winter. Cosmic forces and the seasons of nature are always in flow, bringing different blessings and challenges as they come and go. We must work with the cycle we’re in.

The purpose of these energies and principles is to allow life to preserve itself, for all those lives you touch and for you. The law of energy empowers us to empower others. I heard a saying that I never really understood before, but it makes more sense now: if you help enough other people get what they want, you will get what you want.

It means working through the lives of others. It’s having a service oriented attitude. Do unto others as you would have it done unto you is a spiritual teaching at the core of the Law of Attraction.

How many lives can you touch? Expanding the use of universal energy is known as the multiplier effect. If you want to be wealthy you will achieve one level, but if you make 100 people wealthy you will have multiplied the energy exponentially.

“There is the eternal war between those who are in the world for what they can get out of it and those who are in the world to make it a better place for everybody to live in.” ~ George Bernard Shaw

What flows through you sticks to you. What you give to another you give to yourself, as at the level of spirit we are all ONE. It’s moving away from a me first attitude to giving of ourselves.

Be the source of THAT which you wish to experience in your own life. Be the source of THAT in the life of another.

It is a lifelong process to attain mastery over oneself, but if we learn to harness the principles of life, the universe will be our business partner.

I’ll leave you with an illuminating talk by Bob Proctor:

Let’s smash through that terror barrier!

“What is life but a series of inspired follies?” ~ George Bernard Shaw (Pygmalion)

Reaching for the Stars – Enlightened Goal Setting (Part 2)

“The important thing is to strive towards a goal which is not immediately visible. That goal is not the concern of the mind, but of the spirit.” ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

The ancient science of Numerology, which originated in Babylon and Egypt, was also studied thousands of years ago in China, India, Rome, Japan and Greece. It was in ancient Greece where a certain Greek Philosopher and Mathematician, Pythagoras, felt that the entire universe could be expressed through numbers, and his theories expanded Numerology (so that he became known as the father of Numerology).

Infinity_by_TheUnlikedOne_1600x1000In modern Numerology 2015 is an 8 Universal Year, (calculated by adding the digits of the year together).  The number 8 is said to represent infinite abundance, which of course could affect many different areas of our lives.

Let’s hope we can all harness this cosmic power moving forward…

Having done some soul searching, decide your definite major purpose.

There are nine advantages to this:

  1. You start to notice resources and develop the possible qualities needed to achieve your purpose.
  2. Specialise – attract the knowledge you need. This gives you focus.
  3. Budget your time and money. You don’t waste precious resources.
  4. It alerts you to possibilities you may have missed before, when your radar is honed.
  5. You make quicker decisions.
  6. You attract help. When you’re on a mission people will want to help you.
  7. Experience of the 12 great riches mentioned in part 1.
  8. Develop faith. Not so much in the religious sense, but in yourself.
  9. Develop success consciousness.

It is recommended to make goal statements. These should be positive, specific and with a deadline. Ideally they should fall under the categories of what, why and how. They should also be influence-able, i.e. under your control.  Decide the price you’ll pay, know how you are going to do it, and what you’ll learn and do. Read it several times a day, and memorise it.

Outcome Acting & Thinking:

Brian Tracy goal-quotes2Model yourself on other people who have done what you want to do. Study not just what they did, but if possible what they believed and their values. What were they focusing on? If you can meet such people, many successful people are prepared to help those with a dream. You can also learn a lot from books and people online.  To some extent you will go through trial and error to gain wisdom.

Working backwards is helpful. First you look at the big picture, and like a puzzle gather and fit together the pieces you need to achieve to reach your goal. It’s common sense to break it down into doable steps.

Remember to ask the magic question if you hit a brick wall:

“How can I____________________?”

Fill in the blank with whatever it is you need to know. It’s amazing how the answer will come to you. It could be in the form of meeting someone influential or knowledgeable in the area you’re interested in. You might see an article, hear a radio interview, read a book etc. Somehow, the universe will answer you.

It’s worth noting that without awareness thoughts and events happen on auto-pilot, according to our early programming.

Thinking:

  • Align your beliefs with your goals for the year. Watch out for your un-resourceful or self-sabotaging beliefs.
  • Values provide a source of motivation.
  • Filters allow us to let in the information that you need to reach your goal.
  • Create the big picture and then chunk it down into manageable steps and actions, so that you don’t lose heart or become overwhelmed.
  • Look at your method of making good and fast decisions.
  • You might find it useful to be aware of your psychological preferences. Are you extroverted or introverted? Sensing or intuitive? Thinking or feeling? Judging or perceiving? Why not take the Myers Briggs Test based on Jung’s writings in his book Psychological Types.
  • Understand your internal representations and how they steer your actions.

MyersBriggsTypes

We are all bound to hit some rocks on the road to success. Maybe even a mountain or two. There’s no avoiding it. I’ve found it helpful at such times to remind myself of Napoleon Hill’s statement that every adversity carries with it the seed of an equivalent or greater benefit. It’s okay to feel temporarily discouraged or bad about it, but the most important thing to do is to evaluate the adversity and list its advantages.

Germinate the seed…

Shakespeare so often has the right words and wisdom for every occasion:

There is a tide in the affairs of men,

Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;

Omitted, all the voyage of their life

Is bound in shallows and in miseries. ~ Julius Caesar 4.3.217-20, Brutus to Cassius

If we go the extra mile we will gain more satisfaction, make ourselves indispensable, increase our personal initiative, develop self-reliance and courage, integrity and eliminate procrastination. The qualities of all successful people.

Good luck! By that I mean: Labouring Under Correct Knowledge

“You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” ~ C.S. Lewis

Reaching for the Stars – Enlightened Goal Setting (Part 1)

“Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.” ~ Napoleon Hill

It’s a new year, and we’re naturally focused on what we might do differently or better than last year. Those well-meaning new year resolutions to exercise more, give up smoking, and all manner of ‘should dos’ get attention for maybe a couple of months before they fall by the wayside; even if we’re super determined. Life has a way of testing us to the limit!

To me, the term ‘resolutions’ sets us up for failure before we’ve even begun. It sounds too much like iron clad will-power is required. There’s no fun or adventure and excitement in it. It sort of implies that we’ll need to be as serious as the United Nations are when they publish a Security Council statement of will.

Some lofty intention that we don’t really believe is attainable, eating away at our motivation for sustained action. We certainly do need intention and resolve to achieve our goals and dreams, but that alone won’t propel us to the heights of achievement.

patanjali

In this and the next post I hope to break down the components of how to turn a few ideas on your 2015 resolutions list into a way of life: a step by step approach to create habits so ingrained that it wouldn’t occur to you not to behave in a way that takes you closer to your desired outcomes; so that when 2016 rolls around you can knock back the champagne knowing you did everything in your power to live the life of your dreams.

Every year is a stepping stone toward manifesting the full potential of your life.

It’s an ambitious task I know, but I wanted my first post of 2015 to be as meaningful as possible…

Perhaps we should start with questions.

Why create something?

For some it’s the joy of creating, but at the end of the day, we all need to survive. We all want stuff. That’s okay. For others, the challenge is the key. If you set yourself a challenge that’s just far enough away to motivate and stretch you, just a little more than you thought you could do, but not so far away that it’s frustrating and seemingly impossible, who knows what your life could look like in the process of striving for that goal.  The point is it has to be important and meaningful to you.

The dictionary definition of success is:  the favourable or prosperous termination of attempts or endeavours; the accomplishment of one’s goals.

Napoleon Hill studied the most successful people in America over a period of twenty years, and at the suggestion of billionaire businessman Andrew Carnegie, he distilled this collective knowledge in his 1937 best-selling book: Think and Grow Rich.

In it, he lists the 12 Great Riches of Life:

  1. PMA – Positive Mental Attitude
  2. Sound physical health
  3. Harmony in human relationships
  4. Freedom from fear
  5. Hope of achievement, e.g. setting yourself challenges, which gives you a zest for life
  6. Capacity for faith
  7. Sharing your blessings with others
  8. Having a labour of love
  9. Have an open mind on all subjects
  10. Self-discipline
  11. Understand people
  12. Financial security

Napoleon Hill’s words of wisdom from the great man himself:

Do you know what you want?

Some of us have been told as children that we shouldn’t want anything, and in other cases these decisions were made for us. Some of us may have decided that what we want is not possible anyway. Just deciding this one thing could be the most important step you ever take.

It’s important to have that key ingredient of awareness, and ask: what are my beliefs around what I want? Beliefs are self-fulfilling prophecies that can either help us or hinder us in our quest.

The next thing to decide is the price. What are you willing to do, or to give of yourself to achieve your goals? The price must be paid in full (even though it’s January there’s no discounting allowed, sorry!)

Six Step Formula:

  1. Know where you are – this is taking stock of your situation. What do I know or not know? What resources are available to me?
  2. Know where you want to be, and be very specific.
  3. Take action. Doing something will lead to learning and to further actions. You may not know every action you should take, but an elephant isn’t eaten whole (if you excuse the example), just act the best way you can.
  4. Evaluate the action. What worked? How can I tweak it?
  5. Refine the action. Continue to act, evaluate and you will attract the people and situations that will help you.

I must away…until part 2.

“If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way. ~ Napoleon Hill

How Purpose and Passion can Transform Life from the Mediocre to the Meaningful

“What is the meaning of life? To be happy and useful. ~ Dalai Lama

Ivan Aivazovsky -maritime artDo you truly know what floats your boat? John F. Kennedy wisely stated that a rising tide lifts all boats. Forget that he was talking about the economy. I’m talking about the sea of life, the ocean of experience. Is your mast set to wind? Is your course charted? Or is your vessel rudderless? It won’t all be plain sailing, but you’ll have many adventures navigating from port to port. Before you know it you will have circumnavigated the globe. Okay, okay, enough of the nautical lingo…

Are you aligned with your purpose in life? We can look at many examples of extraordinary people who changed the world by simply following their dream. Individuals who stayed the course, no matter the obstacles they faced.

What will keep you going regardless of success or failure? Inner peace and happiness comes from being true to your vision and values. To inspire your fellow human beings and be the tide that raises other ships, your purpose has to be something other than the quest for money, endless consumerism or a new pair of shoes. I might regret saying that last part!

It has to be a deeply felt cause that is bigger than us as individuals. Without that inner resolve there is no motivation to get out of bed in the morning.

VF quote on happinessDuring my life I’ve done jobs I absolutely hated. Luckily, they were only for relatively brief spells. I found myself wishing away my life, desperate to get to the weekend. I could really relate to philosopher Henry David Thoreau’s words, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” How soul destroying it is to feel that your existence counts for nothing, that you do not matter. Do you know what you were put on this earth to do? Fortunate are those who have shaken free from the clutches of apathy, and are expressing their talents and passion in the world.

Viktor Frankl experienced more trauma in his life than most of us could ever imagine, or would ever face, and yet he went on to write a moving and inspiring lesson for us all, in his ground breaking 1946 book: Man’s Search for Meaning.

For me, when I look at the achievements of people past and present, such as Viktor Frankl, Mahatma Gandhi, Abraham Lincoln, Nelson Mandela, Winston Churchill, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Beryl Markham, Emily Pankhurst, Florence Nightingale, Madam Curie, Helen Keller, Joan of Arc, Ludwig van Beethoven, Daniel Barenboim, William Shakespeare, Mother Theresa, Walt Disney and many more than I could possibly mention, whose lives were, and are challenging, but through being true to their purpose left their legacy in the annals of time. We ordinary mortals can achieve our success according to our own values and dreams.

You don’t have to be famous to make a difference. You don’t have to have a world changing vision. You just have to know who you are, where you’re going and have a plan to get there. Sounds simple right?

Five pointers to help you find your passion and purpose:

  1. Pay attention to how you spend your time. Chances are, if you do something a lot it means something to you. Awareness creates choice.
  2. What knowledge can you share? What activities are you good at and enjoy, that you could make a living from or help others master?
  3. Write a list of your values, brain storm, then make a short list of your top 10 values and see where they fit into your life. What causes are close to your heart? How can you get more involved?
  4. Delve into your beliefs. What beliefs do you hold around money, work, success, health, and relationships? Be honest with yourself, and label each one as being either resourceful to you or a hindrance to you. How many of them are long buried self-sabotaging beliefs creating negative self-talk? Beliefs are powerful, and we always find ways to prove them, whether they are ‘true’ or not. It makes sense to have well-adjusted healthy beliefs about ourselves and the world around us. It’s time to shake off years of indoctrination and remove the glass ceiling.
  5. What would you attempt if you knew you couldn’t fail? I know it’s a provocative question, but as Einstein stated, “Never give up on what you really want to do. The person with big dreams is more powerful than the one with all the facts.” He also said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”

Viktor-Frankl-quote1

There are really only four things that we have complete control over in our lives. How we feel, how we behave, the people and situations we attract to ourselves, and the meanings we assign to all of the above, our internal representations of our lives.

What Makes Life Meaningful: Michael Steger at TEDxCSU:

A recent Stanford research project explored the key differences between lives of happiness and meaningfulness. The meaningful life is a road worth traveling.

Feeling happy doesn’t mean our lives are easy, or perfect. We often feel sadness and joy along our journey, indeed, a whole range of emotions, that’s just the nature of life. But true purpose keeps us on course, gives us that inner peace that we are contributing to the world in our own unique way. Each of us has the ability to touch lives that no-one else can. Every day you are happy is a gift to the world. So in order to be altruistic you also need to be selfish. Indulge in what you love, and give it away…

PhotoFunia-time and tideWe all have the same time given to us. There are 86,400 seconds in a day, 31,536,000 in a year, and just over 2.2 billion seconds in a seventy year lifespan. None of us knows when our personal clock will stop ticking. Time is precious.

How will you spend yours?