Forgiveness Manifested

Forgiveness the long way around

The other day, I got yelled at–rather berated–by a woman on the phone.  In my position, hanging up on the bitch isn’t an option.  She called me stupid, asked if I was new, and if I was dropped on my head as a baby.  I felt myself bubbling up inside like magma under the surface, and I was ready to blow.  Oh, the things I wanted to say to her.  But I kept my mouth shut, solved her problem without so much as a thank you, and I maintained my cool.

Until later.

All that night and the following day, I envisioned the retorts I could have dealt out to that evil woman.   I lost sleep.  I cried and lamented about the lack of compassion she felt for a person whom she had called for help.  I saw her face contorted with hurt with my cruel and vindictive statements, the way she had contorted mine.  And I knew that these thoughts had to stop, for I would only be passing on those horrible emotions to someone else.

Forgiveness even though I didn’t want to

So in the darkness of my bedroom, while trying to sleep, I forgave her for her actions. I was sure she had a bad day, and was lashing out. And I remembered times in my past where I’d done the same thing to someone else. And I let her, and the anger that had been lingering inside me, go. And I fell asleep

The Aftermath of Forgiveness

Well, a few days later, she called again. She spoke to me in kind, sweet tones, with another problem to be solved, but this time with humility. I never mentioned how my feelings were hurt by our last encounter, and I kept my tone professional and warm. And we finished the conversation with “Thank You” and “Have a wonderful day.”

There was no need to gloat about how manifestation works for me, because I know that those who focus on the positive receive it. It just took me a little mental reorganization to get there.

What’s Your Daily Guilt Scale?

Are you perfect?  If so, you can stop reading now because you and I have nothing in common.

If you’re like the rest of us, then you probably go through your day feeling bouts of both goodness and guilt.  You may look in the mirror in the early morning, give yourself a wink of self-approval, and yet at lunch you catch a glimpse of yourself  in the bathroom mirror and you feel like an inner tube in a blouse.  Goodness can be replaced with guilt in a matter of minutes based on the decisions we make.  If you are like me,  then you may decide to skip the gym because you almost fell asleep while driving home.  Or perhaps you are staring at an empty bottle of wine when you planned on having only one glass.  Or a cigarette came out of nowhere and lit itself up in front of you.

When such things happen to me, the guilt takes over and I could spiral down quickly into misery–because instead of following the straight and narrow of a freak of nature that traipses the path laid out by perfect vegan yogis, nuns and healthy triathlete doctors and have no history of risky behavior, there’s me.  I admit–even to myself–that I 0ccasionally stumble off the path, trampling the posies and stepping on  fuzzy bunnies in my failure to follow the directions of those who want me to live to be 117 so that I can buy their products.

And although I am a proponent of a guilt-free life, I experience a sense of guilt every day; yet I have remodeled my guilty inclinations into a useful scale to moderate my behavior.  My scale is represented by numbers from 1 through 10, with 1 being the absolutely most guilt-ridden and miserable a person could be, and 10 being the happiest bliss-infused rainbow-riding earth spirit that lights up the room she enters.

Now I start my morning with a rating of 10 if I’ve gotten enough sleep and I remember my wrinkle lotion.
If I eat relatively healthy food and avoid inhaling an entire pizza, my Guilt Scale stays on the high side, although other factors such as being rude to a colleague, not carrying my load at work, or flipping someone off in traffic can drag the scale down as the  day goes by. If I go to the gym rather than crapping out, the scale remains steady, because by doing so, I have contributed to my own health and happiness by my own doing.  No one forces me to go, and if I decide one day that I just don’t feel like exercising, and mentally I am OK with that, then it’s not necessary for me to reduce the guilt scale.

The whole premise behind the Guilt Scale is that we are in charge of our own lives.  We make decisions about how to treat ourselves and others, and we can use the Guilt Scale to self-assess our behavior and how we feel about who we are right now.  If we progress through our day and loosely rate the feelings and emotions related to our actions, we can reflect on whether or not we are living according to our values.  And if we live according to our values, then we show integrity.

Please let me know if this is helpful to you.

Is the Media Manifesting Our Future?

As much as I love to watch Anderson Cooper, I can’t bear to hear him lament on the economy.  I’m not singling him out, but rather the material he and other anchors deliver in gut-wrenching, spirit-melting droves:

Forty-eight states and the District of Columbia post unemployment rates rise in May, while only one state – Nebraska – registers a decrease.

Property crime rates rise in state

Skeleton of Caylee Anthony had tape over mouth, report says

How is the Law of Attraction affected by the inundation of this endless negative news?

Since the Law of Attraction implies that what we visualize, feel and desire will be manifested in our physical world, it’s just possible that:  the more this information remains in the forefront of our consciousness; is the subject of our conversations around coffee; and is overheard and absorbed by our children, the more of it we’ll continue to see.  If the Universe delivers more of the same, then we are sure to experience more of the negativity presented to us by the media.

I’m not suggesting that you should avoid watching television, reading the paper or listening to radio news, but when is enough enough?  The media itself is not to blame, for in their eyes they are only delivering what we ask for.  But what if we asked for the good stuff?  What if the happy stuff was delivered at the beginning of a newscast, much as a performance review is delivered by our bosses?

“I really think you’ve made some great improvements in your efficiency, Kimberly, and your attendance record is impeccable.  You work with integrity and it is obvious you strive to learn.”

and then…

“There are a few areas on which you may consider spending a little time.  For instance, your reports contain typos that a quick spell check could prevent, and perhaps your tone of voice on the phone could be a little softer to those in need.”

The POSITIVE, and then the NEGATIVE.

Could we see Anderson try this?

“Today marked a great improvement in the reduction of polluted water in South Africa thanks to the concerted efforts of the country’s major mining companies, who are adopting practices that reduce mining-related runoff into the country’s waterways.  Further work is still required to provide safe drinking water for the country’s 44 million residents.”

I don’t know about you, but I would be much more willing to donate time or money if I felt it would actually make a difference in continuing the upswing of improvement.

I have no idea how to put this into motion, so if you know Anderson, please send him my way.

The main reason religions don’t like the Law of Attraction

I am not religious, but I am spiritual. What this means is that I believe in a higher power, but don’t necessarily think that I have to follow certain rituals found in organized religions in order to connect with it. Religions would like us to believe that we are subject to a vindictive, jealous and easily angered God that we must constantly please by staying on the “straight and narrow.” Otherwise, if we stray (SIN!!!) then God won’t love us and will banish us to eternal damnation.

Why must God have the same attributes as humans? That is preposterous. What this makes God is just as irrational, selfish and immature as we are. And that just doesn’t do it for me.

Therefore, when we learn from the recent masters who teach the Law of Attraction, we finally understand that the power has been in OUR hands, not that of a white-bearded God that sits up above and casts his glances upon us all, blessing some and condemning others. Organized religion loses its power on us, and those in charge can no longer control their flock.

But what needs to be noted here is that the Law of Attraction works BECAUSE of God, not WITHOUT him. For we are all one–individual waves of the same ocean, and we are all GOD. Rather than being an old man with a white beard, he is YOU, and he is ME, and he is that annoying high-pitched scream of the baby in front of you in the grocery line. He is the guy who cut you off in traffic this morning, and the hair-flipping girl who would rather flirt with her co-worker than sell you a ticket at the movie theater. God is the leaf you kicked on the way to your car, and the wilted flower you plucked off of the bush in your front yard. He is not UP there. He is HERE.

So the next time your religious leader condemns the Law of Attraction as blasphemy, open your mind just a tad and consider that he may be threatened by something unknown to him (of course if he looks in the Bible hard enough, he will find Jesus’ reference to it in just about everything he says!). Love him for the fact that he is God, challenging you to open your mind and show compassion. We are all at a different level. But we are all in the same cycle of life.

If you haven’t read the Conversations with God books, I suggest you try one and see if it fits your beliefs, or at least gives you another perspective on why we’re here.

For more on past lives, religion and reincarnation, visit my blog RecycleMySoul.com

Do you really deserve that?

Manifesting things is great fun, and it becomes easier with practice. Many of the things we’d like to manifest are intended to replace something we already have–something we whine or complain about and wish we could improve upon. The beauty of it all is that we receive what we THINK about and FEEL. Let me break that last statement down into parts using an example. Suppose we’d like a new car:

We THINK about the car. Maybe it’s a Lexus, a sage green IS250 with caramel colored leather interior. We can formulate the thought of the car, based on those we’ve seen sitting next to us at a red light, or at the dealership when we visited last Saturday. This part is easy.Do you really deserve that?

The second half of manifestation is the FEELING part. We can see ourselves behind the wheel, adjusting the seat, popping in a CD and turning up the tunes. Our hearts beat faster, the excitement builds, and we say to ourselves that we REALLY want this car.

But do we really deserve to have it?

It’s nice to have beautiful things, and for some, driving a coveted and dependable vehicle would be a great improvement to what they have now. But what if your car is just fine? What if the payments fit your budget, repairs are at a minimum, and it shows no signs of deterioration? OK, it may not be shiny, it may have key scratches on it and a few door dings. Have you appreciated your present car for what it’s given you all these years? Or do you find yourself complaining that it’s old, ugly and out of style?

Learning to appreciate what we have is paramount to getting more of it.

So next time you start the manifestation process, ask yourself “Do I really deserve that?” If so, then donate your old car, with blessings, to those who will appreciate it for what it is. The thanks you give will open the door to acceptance for the newer, shinier model.

Right back ‘atcha

This week I realized that the old adage “You reap what you sow” is another result of manifestation.  Now, I would like to report about something good that I did that came back at me, but no such luck.

It all started with a rotten day and my taking my frustration out on a innocent co worker who was simply reporting a drawn-out version of “no.”  She couldn’t do what I wanted, and so I lashed out and walloped her with insults;  she was not the cause of the system’s incompetence, but only the messenger.

I later apologized to her for my rude retorts, but only after I was caught with the help of a recorded call monitored by the quality assurance department, which happens to include my boss.

The next day, I mistakenly sent a customer to a wrong department, and was sent a nasty email from a member on the receiving end of my customer’s distressed email.  She admonished me for not being supportive of my customer, for dumping him on a department that could not address his problem.

She basically ripped me a new one, and rather than respond with something snotty and irrelevant to the situation, I took the email as an indication of what I’d manifested for myself:  just what I sent out.

The lesson:  what you send out with feeling–no matter whether it’s a good feeling or a bad, misdirected one–will come back to mess with you.  And then you know how it feels on the receiving end.

Crossing another Goal off of my List

If anyone can say that manifestation works, here I am on the soapbox again.

My first book is finally published.

Completing a book in 30 days was the goal, and it was #8 of about 16 goals on my list. Those who were dubious about the quality of a book that was written in such a short time should comment only AFTER they read the book! For when I went over the final galleys, it was plain to me that I did not write this from my conscious mind. In fact, I must say that I really don’t remember much of the thought processes involved in the writing of it, yet I knew that my fingers were typing, I printed it out, and no one else was there to help me!

How was it done? The same simple steps:

I wrote down my goal.
I stared at it a while.
I closed my eyes and I saw it as FINISHED.
I felt proud, content, satisfied that I had finished what I had started.
I told all my friends that my book would soon be published.

And then I moved on with life.

It didn’t take too long to get the inquiry: “Would you be interested in writing a companion book for Neale Donald Walsch?” It seems that people are so influenced by his writings, and they asked for assistance in the application of the theories taught there.

I chose Home with God: In a Life That Never Ends, because I had dealt with so much loss in the past few years. Home with God addresses what occurs after our physical death. Whether or not you are religious or not, spiritual or not, afraid or not, the book will change your life in some way.

Check it out here, and let me know what you think. Love to all!