SUCCESS

As the year ends, I look back and consider 2009 a successful year for me. The last bunch of years have been. Others might disagree and not recognize what I do as success. I didn’t become rich—yet! The love of my life still hasn’t met me—but I know he’s coming! None of my books are on The New York Times bestseller list—yet! I can still stand to lose little more weight—but I think I’m hot now! Yet I’ve made a lot of progress, which for me is success. I’ve overcome roadblocks—a HUGE success.

Progress—even if you’re not where you want to be yet—is success when you’re smart enough to recognize it.

People tend to focus on what they haven’t done or gotten yet instead of what they’ve done or have. As you say goodbye to 2009, make a bigger effort than usual to count the blessings you’ve had this year. For me, being happy is one of my greatest successes. People with a LOT MORE money than I have aren’t nearly as happy as I am. That—for me—is success. Money is a side dish. Happiness in myself is the main course. Navigating life with joy and moving forward made 2009 a successful year.

John Foster Dulles said, “The measure of success is not whether you have a tough problem to deal with, but whether it is the same problem you had last year.”

Like I said in my last post on New Years Resolutions, we often resolve to get over humps to conquer roadblocks, our weight, etc., and end up in the same place, wishing for the same things, year after year. Often you might have made progress but don’t feel it if you want to lose 30 pounds and “only” lost seven. Seven is excellent but if 30 is what you want, you might push the 7 pounds aside and feel like a failure.

Do you complain about the same lack or problems, year after year? Are you still waiting to feel successful?

I used to whine about the same things, over and over, like a broken record. I’m blessed that my friends didn’t give up on me! I finally learned that complaining changes nothing and alienates friends. Complaining without taking action to remedy what you complain about keeps you from progressing. Taking even one step forward is success if you perceive it that way.

Are you still trying to lose 30 pounds or make more money or create a new circle of friends or other things you resolved to fix in 2009? Did you want this in years before? Often the solution seems too hard or uncomfortable. Then the problem becomes your inability to take action, which feels even worse, since you’re not getting what you want AND you feel bad about your inability to do something. Often people I know complain about the same romantic partner or friend.

The lament is always the same yet they stay with the person they rant about.

One of my counseling clients has been having problems with his wife since his son from his first marriage came to live with them several years ago. She misses it being just the 2 of them and has been lashing out at the son. Just when Ben (not his real name) considers leaving, his wife apologizes and is sweet for a bunch of weeks, especially when the son has a long visit with his mom. After one of her outbursts, Ben is raging, and says he'll have to take his son and leave. But she always wins him over by being sweet and then when I ask if he’s leaving, he just says everything is fine. But it isn’t!

Situations don’t usually change permanently for the best if you don’t do something different.

I finally got through to Ben after another outburst last week. Unpleasant as it was, he asked his wife to leave. When she wouldn’t, he got another apartment. He still hopes one day they’ll get back together. But moving out told her more than all the times he said her behavior wasn’t okay. When Ben looked back on last year and realized the problem had been there for over a year, he knew he had to take action. Now he feels more positive entering a new year because he stopped an ongoing problem.

Actions solve problems and make changes in your life. If you want success, you have to prepare to do something different.

Even if you don’t get the whole enchilada, get into the habit of taking at least ONE step, and appreciate taking it as a small success. Sometimes when the weather is lousy and I can’t get out to run, I look for other ways to burn calories. I live on the 10th floor so I’ll start walking up from the lobby. I’m not always up for 10 flights if I have packages but I’ll go as many floors as I can and then take the elevator the rest of the way. Instead of lamenting not walking up all the stairs, I’m happy with the 5 or 7 I do.

Resolve to have many little successes in 2010!

I’m almost finished with my cleaning and consider it success that I actually have empty shelf space and part of a drawer is empty. That’s a first for me and I’m proud! Look for your own small successes in the New Year. They add up. Then next December you might find that you accomplished much of what you hoped for. Focus on keeping your thoughts clear about what you want so you can attract the resources to receive.

I wish you all a VERY BLESSED NEW YEAR! Here’s to fabulous days ahead. It’s my intention and I WILL make it my reality!

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Law of Attraction in Action: New Years Resolutions

This is post 67 in my series on the Law of Attraction in Action. You CAN use your power to attract all that you need. I do it every day! Read the posts in this series to see how.

Ahhh… It’s New Years resolution time! The time when everyone writes down or declares all the things they want to do or have in 2010. People do this every year, like it’s some magical formula for attracting what they want. I know they want the resolutions to come true and find the new year a good time to declare their intentions. They can run the gamet:

• “This year I’ll lose 20 pounds.”
• “I’ll go to the gym more.”
• “I’ll find the man/woman of my dreams.”
• “I’ll get a job that pays a lot more money.”
• “My life will get better.”

It all sounds so good when you say it before the new year begins, especially on New Years eve after you’ve been drinking and are in a party spirit. But, resolutions are commonly more wishful thinking than serious intentions that bring results form the Law of Attraction. You may say them forcefully on New Years Eve and wish, hope and pray for them to come true. But, those feelings can dissipate quickly as you get back into old routines when the holiday is over.

Making declarations on one night, or for a few days, doesn’t show you’re serious if your actions show otherwise.

Intentions must be maintained to attract what you want and your actions must support them. Declaring you’ll lose weight or go to the gym more or meet the right romantic partner, or get a better job, etc. won’t make that happen if you don’t go to the gym or change your eating habits or work on making yourself the kind of person who attracts a healthy partner or prepare yourself for a better job. Your life won’t get better if you don’t do something to make it better.

Resolutions don’t work unless YOU DO the work!

Resolutions can actually hurt you if you look back with frustration on the ones you don’t keep. That can make you feel like a failure and cause you to focus on what you don’t want or didn’t do, which attracts more of what you don’t want. And, knowing your resolutions didn’t work can make what you want seem even more unattainable, so attracting them becomes harder. Resolutions don’t magically take hold because you say them and it’s a new year.

They manifest when you continue to affirm them and take steps toward making them happen.

Do you make your declarations and then WAIT for them to materialize? When they don’t, do you declare that resolutions don’t work? That tells the Universe they won’t, and they don’t. The cycle can take on a new life each year, and then bum you out as you look back and see nothing changes. As you get older, you may not even bother to make resolutions since they don’t work. But they do, if you make a conscious effort to manifest what you resolve to have.

New Years’ resolutions are like all intentions—they must be consistently reinforced with your thoughts and action.

New Years resolutions are not special intentions to be said and then ignored. Often your intention to make them can give you an excuse to postpone doing what’s necessary. You want to lose weight in November but choose to wait until the new year. But then the new year comes and your resolve is weaker from waiting. The best time to make a resolution is when the desire hits you. And then do the work instead of waiting for the new year.

Og Mandino says, "If you resolve, beginning today, to put out more on your job than you're getting paid to do, miracles will begin happening in your life."

For whatever area of your life that you want to change or improve, resolve to do the work! Don’t just resolve that something will happen. Resolve to MAKE IT HAPPEN—to do the work necessary. If you want to make more money, resolve to work harder at your job and also to explore other options. It’s so much fun to dream by resolving to get or do all sorts of good stuff. Actually doing the work usually isn’t. Fear, or lack of direction can make it seem unpleasant or hard to take action. I used to enjoy making resolutions and then feel SOOOO let down as the year began and I did nothing. Until I asked God for help.

Start by resolving to ask for spiritual guidance. Ask for suggestions or a direction if you don’t know where to begin. Resolve to listen to the guidance you get.

When you’re intentions are strong, you will get help! Show that they are by starting right now to do something in the direction of your resolution. If you want to lose weight, begin to watch your eating NOW! You might resolve to put more effort in after the holidays but at least try to curb your eating a little and get some exercise. If you want a better job, register a class and learn a new skill. Polish up you resume—get professional help if possible. If you want someone to love you, do more loving things for yourself.

You must show with your actions that the intentions in your resolutions are serious! That’s the key to attracting positive results from your New Year’s resolutions.

All talk and no action attracts all talk and no action! Just like all intentions, resolutions require fuel from you. I’ve been doing my cleaning all week and affirming that I’m making room for more of what I want. I’m listening to spiritual CDs as I clean and declaring my intentions, with enthusiasm, over and over. I know what I want and intend to receive.

What do you want? Write it down and begin to do something to attain it. Ask for guidance and really pay attention.

Guidance can come through experiences, something you see on TV, reading an article, or a gazillion other things. Everything does happen for a reason, so pay attention if something relates to your goal. I just got an announcement about an unexpected workshop given by a guy I’ve wanted to learn more from. He told me 2 weeks ago he wouldn’t have anything in NY for a few months. But demand was so high there will be one in mid January. I know this is for me and will be there. A friend I told this too laughed, and said it was a coincidence. I believe we attract coincidences. I do it all the time.

Resolve to do more general lifestyle changes than specifics of money you’ll make or pounds you’ll lose. That way, any progress is success. Vowing to lose 30 pounds often means you won’t appreciate it when you lose 5 pounds. But you should! Try more things like:

• I will try to eat healthier.
• I will watch my thoughts more to make sure they’re positive so I can attract what I want.
• I will do my best to nurture my spiritual power and seek more help from my higher being by putting my situations into his hands.

Get your thoughts in order and prepare for 2010 to be the year you make your resolutions real! You CAN! This DoorMat has been doing it for years now and it’s a lovely place to be. JOIN ME!

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Eat with Pleasure Over the Holidays!

I was at several holiday parties recently. The next 2 weeks have many opportunities for eating decadently. For many people, Christmas means pigging out at a big, yummy holiday dinner. Yet a holiday dinner is accompanied by some side dishes that can dampen your pleasure:

* Guilt. Weight s a big issue for many of us. Believing you shouldn’t have dessert or potatoes or more than one piece of pie—or believing that you should just stick to meat without gravy and veggies—can make you feel guilty if you indulge. That ruins each bite and tempers your pleasure.

* Disgust. When guilt gets strong, disgust with yourself for indulging can set in. I’ve heard people lament every bite of a delicious, high calorie dinner. “I’m so bad for eating this.” When you do that, you get the extra calories but you don’t enjoy eating them.

* Deprivation. If you choose to “be good,” you’ll feel bad about not having what everyone else does. You may resist temptation but long for the goodies you watch others eat. It stirs cravings that you can feel long after the dinner and eventually may lead you to a pig-out that isn’t as satisfying as the parts of the dinner you choose not to eat.

Why do that to yourself! It can ruin your meal, and your day! I’ve stopped the shoulds and shouldn’ts and give myself permission to do what makes me feel good, not bad. Knowing that I’ll be eating more on the holiday, I’ll go for a run before and then try for one after too. I tried to do this for Thanksgiving. But as I began to put on my running clothes, the sky got very overcast and I lost my desire to run. At first I pushed myself with reminders of all the eating I’d already done and what was coming up. I SHOULD got burn some calories!

But I didn’t. I chose to honor my feelings that were concerned about getting caught in a rain storm and ignored the SHOULD.

The sun returned later and improved my mood. A few hours after pigging out, I had a desire for exercise and went to burn off some calories. This time I was in the mood and enjoyed my run, instead of forcing myself out. I didn’t know I’d go later when I passed in the morning. But if I hadn’t gone, I wouldn’t have felt guilty, or worse about my eating. There's always tomorrow!

You have ONE life. Don’t ruin it by inflicting rigid standards on your pleasure.

Yes, it’s important to eat healthy and exercise—MOST of the time! I don’t make rich foods and sugary treats a habit. But once in a while won’t ruin you! I’m trying to get a bit more exercise before the upcoming holiday dinners this weekend to compensate. But we had a blizzard and snow is on the ground so I won’t beat myself up if I can’t get out to exercise. I'll do my weight training in the gym. But I won’t eat less if I can’t run.

Erma Bombeck said, “Seize the moment. Remember all those women on the Titanic who waved off the dessert cart.”

Seize the day and enjoy the holiday food! Indulge without guilt. You don’t have to pig out to enjoy it. Instead, plan a little so you have some control over what you eat while still enjoying the goodies. Rather that withholding all the richer foods:

* Check out all the food before taking large heaps of the first few, especially if the food is served buffet style. When I see a dish I love, I take a lot. Then I realize there are 4 others yummy ones I want to partake of and then I take too much food. So I try to take a small scope of everything first and when it’s finished, decide if I need more.

* Make trade-offs. If your concern is just one big dinner, just relax and let yourself go a bit. But, if you’re away from home for many meals, you can create some restraint that doesn’t deprive you. When I travel and eat many meals out, or I’m at someone’s house for several days in holiday mode, I assess what I want beforehand and choose which goodies to skip or just have a taste of and which I’d like a real portion of. If I want dessert, I skip bread and only have a small portion of potatoes. Think about what you’d normally have in the situation, and decide what you can skip. Trade one goodie for another.

* Leave the gobbling to turkeys. Eat slowly. Chewing food more carefully improves digestion. The longer it takes you to eat, the fuller and more satisfied you feel. Have smaller bites instead of shoveling food into your mouth. Even if you’ve always been a fast shoveler, you can practice and get used to a slower pace. I savor each bite and can eat less by doing so.

* Take smaller portions. Take just a little of each dish instead of piling your plate high. Get small portions of seconds if you want it. You’ll still eat less this way and not feel deprived.

The holidays are for celebrating and enjoying fun times with family and friends. Cut yourself some slack and enjoy them! I wish you all a blessed holiday season, no matter what you celebrate.

If you enjoyed my post, please leave a comment and/or click on the bookmark and write a short review at some of the sites, especially Stumbleupon and Digg. Thanks!

Law of Attraction in Action: Cleaning Out Old Stories

This is post 66 in my series on the Law of Attraction in Action. You CAN use your power to attract all that you need. I do it every day! Read the posts in this series to see how.

It’s that time again. The end of the year is getting closer. People are talking about beginning the New Year on a good note. That’s always nice! But often it’s just talk and you end another year wondering why it had the same things you didn’t like the year before. You can’t just wish things away! It would be nice if we could but life doesn’t work that way. Nor does the Law of Attraction.

If you want to enter 2010 on a more positive note, take action to send the Universe a message with your intentions by clearing out energy from the past.

When I was a DoorMat I lived a cluttered life. I’d lament about never being happy and that life didn’t go well for me. But, I did nothing to change it. There was never room for it all my STUFF. My closets had piles of it and my room was in disarray most of the time. People actually said they couldn’t stand coming over because of it. While I laughed it off, I felt shame.

Looking back I see that was motivated by 2 major factors—lack of self-respect and fear.

My living space reflected how I saw myself—a mess, not worth putting time into; hopelessly unattractive; sad. That was my apartment and also who I thought I was, so I didn’t respect myself or my right to live in a nice space. My messy, cluttered environment held old memories that reinforced where I was. Fear made me keep everything I ever owned. I was scared to let go of anything, lest I need it someday. Clothes, books and general stuff piled up. Reading You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay opened my eyes.

Cleaning is a great way to change your life!

As my spiritual faith became stronger and my self-esteem grew, I returned to the one chapter in the book that I’d ignored—the one on the importance of getting rid of clutter. Last year I discussed this in my post on Making Room for Better Things. After getting rid of half my stuff, my life opened up. Clearing things out tells the Universe you’re making room for new things, be it possessions or opportunities. After learning this, I made it my tradition to begin cleaning my apartment in the beginning of December. It escalates as it gets closer to the 31st.

Entering the New Year after clearing out as much as you can sets a tone for better things to come into your life.

After my first cleaning, I thought I was done, but every year I find MANY things to toss. My post, Clean Your Way to an Abundant New Year, gives specific tips for determining what to toss and other things that have worked for me. By the time New Year’s eve arrives, my apartment and my life will be cleared. Each year I feel like I go through another layer of my past to move forward with more ease. In recent year’s I became more aware of a greater significance of getting rid of stuff.

You don’t just throw out or give away old possession. You also get rid of their stories—old memories that hold past hurts and limitations.

Throwing out material possessions changes your energy for the better. It’s not just about clutter. The significance is in the memories behind your stuff. All our possessions have a story—where it came from, why you have it. Often it’s simply you saw a shirt you liked needed a vase and and bought it. Or you know who a gift was from. Those are stories, however mundane. I get rid of a lot of things by asking myself why I have them. If there isn’t a good answer—buh-bye!

It’s important to clean out your inner self—your soul and old baggage. Clearing out negative energy gives the Law of Attraction more to work with.

I also have things I have no use for that bring back wonderful memories and make me smile to see them. That’s good enough to keep! But things that conjure up not so happy memories should go. Over the years I’ve tossed MANY photos of people I no longer like and gifts from them. Or of people who I haven’t seen in ages or who have no meaning to me. I’m also becoming more aware of the bad energy some possessions carry and how important it is to identify it to let it go. That affected me greatly as I cleaned this week.

Sometimes we keep things with negative attached because they’re nice or we just think we should keep them.

Hmmm… I have a pendant I got for my birthday from a guy I’d been very close with, right before our relationship fell apart. I never wore it, not because of him but I have one I like better so I just left it in a drawer. Now I know it should go, and I’m trying to figure out what to do with it. It’s a good silver pendant but I don’t know anyone who’d want it. Maybe I’ll put it on Ebay! My new awareness has pushed me to make a bigger decision and I’m still trying to figure out what to do.

As you let go of the past, your spirit will get lighter. Mine is starting to float!

Another revelation this weekend: Years ago I told my aunt I loved her little antique rocking chair. It has no arms but the carving in the wood is pretty. Not long after she wanted me to have it and arranged for someone to bring it to me. I loved it! That was during an unhappy time in my life. I had a roommate, whose friends I didn’t like. One day they started tossing a football in our living room. I yelled they should stop as one ran across the room to catch it, and crashed into my chair.

They knocked the back piece of wood off and completely broke the wicker seat. Of course they saw no need to pay to fix it. Since then, I’ve kept a pillow on the seat and have the chair stuck in a corner. It doesn’t look right there but I can’t have anyone sit on it. I loved that chair so I kept it. But yesterday I asked myself why? Someone said it would cost a fortune to fix it. I have other memories from my aunt. The main memory as it is is attached to the inconsideration of the guys who broke it.

Often we don’t get rid of things because we don’t know what to do with them.

I don’t know what to do with the chair. It’s so cute, and an antique, and I hate to just throw it out. Yet it’s broken! So I’ve told the Universe that unless someone happens along to fix it by New Year’s or take it, I’ll throw it out on the 31st. If it were fixed, the memories would be good again. But looking at the damage stokes bad energy. This is a really big deal for me to give it away. I’ve had it for a long time and always hoped to find a way to fix it. But it’s time to let it go. While a piece of me is sad, a bigger piece feels empowered from this decision.

Anyone in NY who wants the chair or who can help me fix it, please get in touch! ☺

Letting go of stuff also releases their stories. Whether the story is attached to someone in your past or fear of needing it someday and not having money to replace it or a souvenir or anything else, decide if this story is one you want to keep alive with the item. Often we don’t think about why we have things and what they mean to us. Start thinking! As you close the book on old stories, you also get rid of old energy that might be subconsciously holding you back.

Start now—throw something out! Or better yet, give it to someone who can use it. Then you get a double blessing—helping someone and helping yourself have better energy to attract more positive stuff.

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Listening to Your Spiritual Tap

Frank McKinney, NY Times best-selling author, was inspired by the biblical passage, “from those to whom much is entrusted, much will be expected” when he wrote The Tap (Health Communications, Inc.). He’s a businessman who believes heart and soul that we’re judged not on what we accumulate or achieve through life but more on our spirit of generosity towards others. In his inspirational book, he shares how God’s great ‘tap’ moments in life prove that compassionate capitalism and spiritual stewardship can co-exist.

Frank McKinney is a successful real estate entrepreneur. He generously donates significant amounts of money to his non-profit, Caring House Project Foundation (CHPF) that provides a self-sustaining existence for desperately poor and homeless families around the world. He credits his astronomical success to his deep faith and accompanying spiritual principles. He believes that God ‘taps’ each and every one of us many times in life, answering prayers and presenting life-changing opportunities.

I got chills listening to Frank speak and feel so much more aware of my need to give back more for all my blessings. I know I was 'tapped' to start my Project Self-Empowerment. Frank takes what I wrote in my last post, Law of Attraction in Action: Charity to a much higher level. He truly believes that our blessings are to be shared with others and that in turn attracts many more blessings. The synergy is bountiful when you use it with compassion for others and take action instead of just talking about it. Here’s what he had to say:

What gave you the balls to leave home with $50 and no higher education? Ignorance. I was heading down a path that only a juvenile delinquent can forge at 18. I felt a need for a change of venue from Indianapolis in 1982. What better place to land than West Palm Beach in south Florida? I began to seek my professional highest calling.

How did you get into real estate? In1986, I was earning a 6-figure income teaching tennis, but there was a limit to how many hours I could bake out in the sun. I saved up my money and bought my first piece of property—a $35,000 fixer upper in a bad part of town. When I sold it I made $7,000. It could have been Monopoly money. I proved that my concept worked—buying an undervalued property and adding value to it like nobody else and marketing it like nobody else.

From my professional highest calling standpoint, that was an epiphanous moment—knowing I could do it. While I’ve added zeroes to it now, I still do what I did 25 years ago. After 5 years I finally got the courage to move to the ocean front and start building beautiful homes with a lot more zeroes. That was a quantum leap but the application wasn’t too different from that first fixer upper.

How have you been able to do so much? I am a simpleton—a very linear thinker. This year I wrote 3 books and released them at the same time. I break things down into very simple compartments and don’t overcomplicate things or do a lot of research online, rationalize or over plan it. We as a species inherently, in the information age we live in today, over-research, over-Google, to the point that subconsciously we’re looking for a reason to say no to things. I’m a do-er, not a talker. Action cures fear. Lack of action feeds fear. The fear tends to subside when we take action.

What helped you to continue taking risks? I have a life mantra that’s also a chapter title in The Tap: Exercise your risk threshold like a muscle and eventually it becomes stronger and is able to withstand greater pressure. I got to where I am today—taking big risks that make people ask how I sleep—by exercising my tolerance for risk at a young age and building up that fear muscle. I’m afraid every day of my life but don’t let it stop me. I embrace and enjoy it. It’s a part of my DNA now. It makes me feel very alive when I’m doing something that causes fear.

How would you rate the importance of doing things to give back in the big picture of doing business? The Tap is all about this concept. Most of us pursue this professional highest calling our entire lives, to the detriment of pursuing our spiritual highest calling and sharing our blessings with those who are less fortunate. My mentors are some of the most successful people in the world. They understand that God rewards responsible stewards. When we realize it’s incumbent on us to share time, talent and treasure, we realize that the territory becomes larger.

What’s the concept behind your book The Tap? I hope to teach people how to sensitize themselves to what I refer to as life’s great tap moments. A lot of people don’t know how to recognize God tapping you on the shoulder and when they do, they see it as an annoyance. Then you’ve got to take action. That’s the message I want to get through. Let’s learn how to sensitize ourselves to life’s great tap moments and then how to take action on them!

Compassion with action is a waste of emotions. You can feel very good about doing something nice for people but if you don’t act on it, success in the business we’re all in—the business of life—will be ever elusive. That’s why I rate the concept behind the tap as the primary contributor to my success.

How does this work with the Law of Attraction? You benefit when you’ve been tapped and understand why you need to manifest these things, and it’s not for you. It’s for others. Then and only then do you have a chance for that BMW to fall down your chimney. That’s how I see The Secret. It’s not about the material things. When you dovetail your professional highest calling with your spiritual highest calling—oh boy!

Why did you create the Caring House Project Foundation? It started by saying yes to my first little tap of going to serve meals to the homeless, one night a week. Then I began fixing up houses and rented them out for a dollar a month to elderly homeless people instead of selling them. Then we went to Haiti, the poorest country in the western hemisphere and started building little houses. The average life expectancy there is 47 years and there’s a 22% chance that a 5-year old will not see their fifth birthday. I’m in the housing business so I thought I should provide housing for those who don’t have it and that’s what I did.

We started building self-sufficient villages. The deeper I understood the concept behind the tap, the larger the Caring House Project Foundation grew. Now every book I write, all the royalties I receive, all the appearance fees I get and a good portion of profits when I sell a house goes to funding these 14 villages that combine a school, clinic, community center, homes, clean drinking water, and renewable food, all in a campus-like setting. Start with something small. Visit a children’s hospital. My tap moment began with something small and look how it’s grown!

In The Tap there are 7 stages to feeling the tap. I want to maintain myself at that seventh stage. It’s part of my business plan. I build the big houses so I can build a lot of small houses in Haiti. There’s purpose in my life every day. It’s just part of my spiritual higher calling.

Why did you write The Tap? Each of you has been blessed with the ability to succeed at some level. It’s important for you to realize that those successes were not meant for your sole benefit. They were meant to also benefit those less fortunate. People have those self-defeating thoughts, like, “I am not worthy.” But you are and you have been blessed with the ability to succeed at some level. You have to realize that those blessings weren’t just meant for you. They were meant to be shared with those less fortunate. Once you get that, it’s amazing how things will just explode for you.

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Check out Frank McKinney's book The Tap to further understand that rewards will come with astonishing speed and size to those who act on the greater responsibility that comes with greater blessings. See why this world would be a much better place if everyone read his compelling message and became a “tapped” person as a result of it! Listening to and acting on my taps has brought me abundance that's priceless.

If you enjoyed my post, please leave a comment and/or click on the bookmark and write a short review at some of the sites, especially Stumbleupon and Digg. Thanks!

Law of Attraction in Action: Charity

This is post 65 in my series on the Law of Attraction in Action. You CAN use your power to attract all that you need. I do it every day! Read the posts in this series to see how.

During this holiday season, there’s lots of joy in the air. People tend to be more caring. On the streets of NYC, I see many people putting dollars into the collection boxes for the Salvation Army and other charities. There’s a glut of people volunteering to help out at soup kitchens on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year day. They seem to get a good, warm feeling from helping out.

But what about the rest of the year!?!

Of course it’s normal to give when you can. But we shouldn’t need the holiday spirit to spark us to help those less fortunate. Research shows that people derive great happiness from doing things that help others, whether it be regular volunteer work, donating money, organizing a drive to help a charity, etc.

Making others happy with charitable actions attracts more happiness for you!

Knowing you’ve helped someone feels good. It’s a reward unto itself—priceless—since how can you put a price tag on the value of knowing someone had a good meal or can get medical care or has a decent place to live, etc., because of your effort. Charity doesn’t have to be a big act or more than you can afford. When you give what you can from your heart, it can be something very simple.

Often what might seem like very little to you can be a blessing to someone in need.

If you’ve ever ridden the subways of NY, you probably know that many people come on trying to get money from the riders. Some sell things, some entertain and some just make an impassioned plea for something to eat or money to buy food. If you ride the same line enough, you may see the same people. One day an amicable guy who’d lost his job got on. He sang for money, saying he wanted to at least give something—entertainment—to people who might help him out. He’d been unemployed for a while. Like a few others, I gave him a dollar.

A few weeks later, he got on my subway care again. This time he had a bad runny nose and was stuffed up when he announced that he had a bad cold but rather than just beg, he’d sing for money and do his best, despite how stuffed he was. He sounded awful. Kind of croaking. But he finished the song. I know how awful it feels to be that stuffed and not have medicine for it. So when he got to me with his hat, I put in the sheet of Sudafed I had with me. I always keep some in my purse in case I need them. The smile I got from him, and the appreciative thanks, was as heartfelt as if I’d given him a lot of money.

When you have nothing, something can mean the world. And the Law of Attraction reciprocates with other kinds of blessings.

For me, the biggest blessing is the good feeling I get when I help someone. Even if I don’t know who’s getting my help, like when I donate to a charity, I know I’ve done good, and that feels good! Sometimes people say they wish they could help a charity but their financial situation doesn’t allow it. That doesn’t have to be true!

Honestly, when you give to others, the Law of Attraction returns it to you. Money tends to come from a variety of sources.

Even when I don’t have an income earning project I’ll give money to people on the street who need to eat. I’ve even bought food for people during times I had to cut out my own eating out. Yet I always have enough! It’s lovely how the Law of Attraction reciprocates a charitable spirit.

The act of giving attracts getting.

I’ve mentioned that my company is called Project Self-Empowerment and one of my goals is to raise the money to give my book, How Do I Love Me? Let Me Count the Ways away for free in colleges, shelters, etc. I want others to learn the tools for loving themselves like I do. When my mother passed away, I’d just given the proposal for the book to my agent and got a message that I need to give it away in order to reach the people who might benefit the most from learning how to love themselves and in doing so, improve their self-esteem.

So I took it back from my agent with the intention of self-publishing it, selling it and using any money from sales to give them away to college students, people in shelters and others who could benefit. I’ve put it out to God that I’m expecting to connect with either a corporate sponsor or a benefactor who would finance it and know that when the time is right it will be there. Meanwhile, I’ve finished writing it. People think I’m crazy because I could make money selling the book.

But, I’ve never felt more satisfaction from my writing as I do at the thought of giving the book to people it will help.

My next post will be an interview with Frank McKinney, a NY Time bestselling author who used his success in real estate to build homes for poor people. He will talk about the blessing of being charitable toward others. When you do, it truly increases your abundance in many ways, besides making more money. The kind of abundance it brings makes life more rewarding.

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Step By Step

I bought a new dinette table months ago at IKEA but never put it together for lack of time. It became a fixture, sitting in the box by my door. I knew that deep down I wasn’t wild about the thought of putting it together, even though I’ve done it and know I can. This week I decided to just do it.

I opened the box and saw all the pieces. Then I looked at the instructions. As I went through the pages, I began to flip myself out. The instructions looked complicated. I almost put it all back in the box for another time but knew I should get it done. I realized I was looking ahead too much. Looking at the later steps made me nervous.

We often look ahead, speculate, and let intimidating stuff stop us, in a variety of situations.

A project at work may seem too tough if you think beyond what you have to do right now. How will I do this or get that once I’ve gotten started? What if I screw up halfway through my speech? Looking ahead can sabotage getting the job done, no matter what it is. In work or in life, we block ourselves from doing what we’re capable of doing by looking too far down the road. I decided to put the table together, one step at a time.

When you do something step by step, word by word, task by task, what you have to do becomes doable.

I opened the box and sorted the pieces of my table. Then I went in steps. First step: separate all the screws, nuts and bolts in sizes and make sure I had them all. I felt better when that was done and moved to step 2 in the instructions. When I’d finished that, I moved to the next step. As each one got done, the table came together and I laughed at how big a deal I’d made of the simple assembly. Things had seemed complicated when I looked ahead since I didn’t have the other steps done. When I did, I just kept going.

When you take any situation, task or fear one step at a time, you can get do what you have to do.

Putting the table together taught me a valuable life lesson—that when you stop looking at the bigger picture and focus on the first step to take, you can accomplish a lot more. We often project to the future and worry about what ifs. Plus, looking at things that come after taking the first steps may be harder to envision if you haven’t taken the ones before them. When I looked at all the pieces in the package needing to be put in the right place and instructions that confused me, my table almost didn’t get put together. But, I started at the beginning and got it done.

Once I put the first parts together, the confusing parts made sense.

This made me brazen and I bought a cabinet with doors that was much more complex than the table. I could have paid to have it assembled but chose to do it myself. I opened the box yesterday and my first thought was regret that I didn’t have the store do it. There was a huge bag filled with an assortment of pieces and screws in different sizes. My stomach turned. Then I stopped beating me up for insisting on doing it myself. I could do it—step by step.

There was a big slab of Styrofoam in the box and I used it as a tray to sort all the small pieces and screws and nails. There were many dozens of them! I saw things I couldn’t identify and decided not to worry about them—I’d discover what they were for when I reached the step for them. I identified what I could with the instruction sheet. Then I did the first step. It took a while. I made some mistakes and had to redo things. Each time I forgave myself for not checking that each shelf was facing the right way, etc., before I put screws in.

Instead, I reminded myself that when I put the second cabinet together (yes, I bought 2!), I’ll be a pro!

It took a while but now this cabinet is making me happy by giving me more storage space. Tonight I'll do the second one and it will take be MUCH faster since I know exactly what to do. Often we look down the road too far and scare ourselves against doing something by allowing the future steps to seem too hard. Instead, do the first step, then try the next, and you’ll find it much easier to get whatever it is done.

Initiating an action, like applying for a new job or agreeing to make a speech, can seem scary. But you can do it if you just focus on what you have to do or say first.

Of course you should prepare for the bigger picture if necessary but focusing too far ahead or analyzing to death future steps will keep you from getting to them. When you take the first step and accomplish it, then look to the second, and so on. As each step is completed, your confidence will increase and you’ll understand more about what to do for the next one. This keeps a big endeavor from becoming overwhelming.

Trying to figure out how you’ll ever manage to finish step 6 when you haven't done 1-5 sabotages what you’re trying to do.

Looking back, putting the table together was easy. The latter steps no longer seem confusing. After the foundation was together, the rest followed in a logical, doable way. Even the cabinet wasn't hard when I assembled it step by step. I do this even when I'm writing a book. Sometimes I begin to consider later chapters and get concerned about what material I'll put into them. But now I catch myself and write the first chapter. When I get to the ones I wasn't sure about, I know what to say.

Most things are doable if you just take it one step at a time and let each finished one motivate you further. That’s how hard tasks become easier!

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Law of Attraction in Action: Negative Blips

This is post 64 in my series on the Law of Attraction in Action. You CAN use your power to attract all that you need. I do it every day! Read the posts in this series to see how.

Have you ever has something go wrong and you et it ruin your whole day? I have! Many times unfortunately. It can be something small like a comment about my weight. Or missing my train and being a little late. Then, instead of letting the incident pass, it pervades my mood for hours, if not days. I try to catch my response faster now but it’s still hard. A ten minute negative can pervade your life if you let it.

Negatives can really latch on like glue!

I thought about this yesterday. Something happened that I didn’t like and I held it with me all day. It was a bit of a dreary day and much colder than it’s been. Later in the afternoon I realized I’d let one small thing bring me down for the whole day. That’s so unnecessary. I like to feel happy! My thoughts were negative and I attracted a down feeling. I knew that I had to turn it around or I’d continue being tired and down.

I began thinking of positive things and saying them aloud when the negatives came into my head, determined to send a better message to the Universe. It worked!

I also ordered a light box to help me when there’s not enough sun. I get Seasonal Affective Disorder in the winter. When the days get short, it makes me more tired and prone to feeling down. When there’s sunshine, my mood is bright and I absorb as much as I can. But on the cloudy and nasty days, I have to create my own. Expecting the light box to help. It's important to find ways to diffuse the effects of negative incidents.

I can’t control the sunshine but I can control whether I let glitches in my day hang with me or let it go to attract more positive feelings.

Research for the new book I’m writing has taught me that negative emotions are much more potent than positive ones. You can have a fabulous evening at a show, come home filled with joy, and lose it by morning. Support from friends can be overshadowed by your boss yelling at you for 10 seconds. Feeling anxiety about being late for an appointment can stick with you for the whole day, well after it’s over. Stress can become a lifestyle if you don’t catch yourself. Yet joy and happiness and feeling positive are harder to maintain.

Negative feeling are sticky. They take hold like Crazy Glue if you’re not vigilant! And guess what they attract?

Negative incidents can happen throughout the day. It’s hard to avoid them. But a momentary unkind word or uncomfortable situation isn’t your whole day and therefore shouldn’t ruin it. When I was a DoorMat, someone would ask if I’d gained weight and my day would be shot. I held all negatives like a sponge. Hanging onto negative blips in your day attracts more negative feelings and reinforces what you felt at the time of the incident. I couldn’t let go back then. I was too deep in attracting unhappiness.

Leave life blips in the past and let them go so you can feel more positive.

Being positive and happy is a conscious choice. Feeling negative is a response to something unpleasant and goes deeper if you let it. Traffic can do serious damage to your mood, as can an annoying phone call, small disagreement, or other incident you don’t like. By feeding yourself a steady diet of positive emotions—joy, gratitude, satisfaction, love, self-approval, etc.—you can keep negatives in check and attract more positives.

It can take a conscious effort to not let a negative blip set the mood for your whole day, or week, or longer. But you can do it if you CHOOSE to!

How many times has someone asked how you are and you said a version of “Lousy,” because you’d had a negative blip? Maybe a co-worker disagreed with you or you missed your bus or you tripped and felt embarrassed or got a small stain on your shirt or a million others things that happen as part of life. Putting it out that you consider your life lousy or cursed or other negatives is the surest way to keep it that way. That's the wrong message to send if you want to attract happiness!

When memories of a negative incident get into my head after it’s over, I try to say, “blip be gone!” Because it usually really is a small blip in the bigger picture of our lives, yet we give them so much importance. So, do you want to keep blipping through life, letting negatives rule your overall mood? Or do you want to minimize their effect and be happy most of the time?

When a blip haunts you, remind yourself it’s over. Past tense. Finito! Done.

Of course you can think about it and feel lousy for longer. That’s your CHOICE. I’d rather be happy now. And to accomplish that, I must keep negative emotions in check, and in perspective. I live for now. Anything that happened before now is over.

It’s so easy to hold onto past stuff that felt bad and so easy to forget the good. But you can change that dynamic!

Call a positive friend, talk it out and then let it go. Remind yourself it’s in the past and the past is over. Think about why it should impact on you now? Go to the mirror and express some love! Reassure yourself that you want to take loving care of your feelings and will try to let go of negatives. Words mean nothing unless you let them. Missed buses and disagreements are resolved. It’s the feelings you had that aren’t. So put them into perspective.

Why let them make you feel bad, which attracts more bad vibes when you should have good ones.

I love myself too much to do that now. Begin to be more aware of how negative blips affect your overall mood. Ask yourself if you’d rather be negative or be happy? If you choose happy, then put as much focus as you can on your positive blessings. Don’t let those negative emotions stick to you. The more they do, the more they build up like plaque on teeth, that’s hard to get rid of. Brush the blips off as they happen to keep your soul clear and leave room for happier things. You'll see your life turn around in a dramatically positive way when you do!

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Loving Gifts

We all know that the economy isn’t so great for many people. Many are cutting back on spending. With the season of gift-giving bearing down on us, it’s good to think about gifts that don’t cost anything but that can be a blessing to others, and to yourself. I was thinking about things that make me happy to receive and to give and shall share them here:

Compliments
: A kind word to someone can brighten their day. Expressing appreciation for how someone looks or something they did can be a tonic for many. While I have great self-esteem now, I still love when someone has complimentary words for how I look. You might not think it but men love compliments too! We often give them more to women but everyone likes to feel appreciated or know that you recognize their good qualities. So be generous about letting people know what you like about them.

Heartfelt thank yous: Nobody likes to be taken for granted. Often we just expect people in our lives to do the things they do for us and don’t stop to let them know we appreciate it. You might not actually feel appreciation if you take someone for granted. But you should! 
Expressing appreciation for what others do is a form of gratitude, and gratitude brings many gifts. Think about what people in your life do for you and tell them it isn’t unnoticed.

Sending a handwritten note in this age of quickly written emails makes you stand out and is usually valued by the recipient. I still remember people who sent me a personal thank you note in the mail after hearing me speak. Notes matter! Send a card to your mom or a friend when it isn’t an occasion, just to say they’re special. That can be better than anything you buy.

Active listening
: There’s listening—being there, nodding appropriately but not really processing what’s being said as you wait for your turn to speak. And then there’s listening with respect and caring. The latter is a gift. When someone comes to you with a serious concern, make listening about them only. Ask questions to show you’re paying full attention. Let them know you care and are willing to put your personal thoughts aside to give them your full focus. This is a gift that will bring you great rewards in return!

Love: I don’t mean romantic love or the deep love you have for family, though that's good too. Be a loving kind of person to others—warm, friendly, caring. I love being that way. 
I hug people a lot. Most know to expect one for hello and goodbye. I have a friend who is very undemonstrative. She didn’t have much love growing up and has a hard time expressing it. Whenever I’d go to give her a hug she’d stiffen up and didn’t quite hug me in return. Her hands would just kind of pat my back. I thought it made her uncomfortable so once when saying goodbye, I didn’t reach out to hug her. Surprisingly, she came forward with her arms out, waiting for one. She didn’t know how to receive love but liked the hugs just the same. Hugs are very therapeutic for everyone.

Support: A wonderful gift is to give support that THE PERSON needs. I emphasized THE PERSON because often people offer the support they think the person needs, or that they want to give. Men get into trouble with their romantic partner when they try to tell them how to fix a problem instead of just offering supportive words or asking, “What do you need from me?” Many folks give what according to their own agendas. When my mom passed away suddenly from an accident, one friend kept calling me, asking sadly how I was doing. Her whole attitude was negative.

I explained I’d rather she call less. I’d be counting the blessings about my Mom, feeling grateful for my wonderful memories, and she’d call and depress me. She drove me so crazy that I had to tell her that she was the cause of me feeling down. She indignantly said that if it were her, she’d want people to hover. But I wasn’t her and had to eventually get mean to stop her depressing calls. Letting someone know you’re there if needed is often support enough. While I’ve never called my neighbor who said I could call even in the middle of the night if I had a problem, I feel good knowing I can.

Smiles. Smiling and a cheerful demeanor put people into good moods. It will put you into a better mood too! BE generous with smiles and an upbeat mood.

Time. Making time to spend with those you care about can be the biggest gift of all. Often we’re so busy we forget to visit friends and loved ones or postpone calling them and they feel neglected, even if they don’t tell you. Studies show that good relationships with others can give the biggest positive boost to your health. Making time allows you to feel the love too! It also helps you to prevent regrets if something happens to a loved one.

These gifts will enrich the lives of those on the receiving end and enrich yours too! Think about who you can give these gifts from the heart to. And for ideas for material gifts to give, you can check out my blog post from last year—Giving Gifts that Nurture People & Our Planet—where I reviewed some wonderful products that nurture. And don’t forget to do or get something(s) special for YOU!

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Change Your Brain, Change Your Life!

Today I'm delighted to have an excerpt from a fantastic new book, Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience Of Happiness, Love & Wisdom (New Harbinger Publications, November 2009), by Rick Hanson, Ph.D. and Richard Mendius, MD., which provides a Buddhist path to changing your brain in order to improve your life.

Taking in the Good

from Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience Of Happiness, Love & Wisdom
by Rick Hanson, Ph.D. and Richard Mendius, MD

I am larger, better than I thought;
I did not know I held so much goodness.
—Walt Whitman, “Song of the Open Road”

Much as your body is built from the foods you eat, your mind is built from the experiences you have. The flow of experience gradually sculpts your brain, thus shaping your mind. Some of the results are explicit recollections: this is what I did last summer; that is how I felt when I was in love. But most of the results remain forever unconscious. This is called implicit memory, and it includes your expectations, models of relationships, emotional tendencies, and general outlook. Implicit memory establishes the interior landscape of your mind—what it feels like to be you. In other words, you are largely what you (implicitly) remember, the slowly accumulating residues of lived experience.

In a sense, those residues can be sorted into two piles: those that benefit you and others, and those that cause harm. To paraphrase the Wise Effort section of Buddhism’s Noble Eightfold Path, it will help you to create, preserve, and increase beneficial implicit memories, and prevent, eliminate, or decrease harmful ones.

The Negativity Bias of Memory
But here’s the problem: your brain preferentially scans for, registers, stores, recalls, and reacts to unpleasant experiences; as we’ve said, it’s like Velcro for negative experiences and Teflon for positive ones. Consequently, even when positive experiences outnumber negative ones, the pile of negative implicit memories naturally grows faster. Then the background feeling of what it feels like to be you becomes undeservedly glum and pessimistic.

Sure, negative experiences do have benefits: loss opens the heart, remorse provides a moral compass, anxiety alerts you to threats, and anger spotlights wrongs that should be righted. But do you really think you’re not having enough negative experiences?! Emotional pain with no benefit to yourself or others is pointless suffering. And pain today breeds more pain tomorrow. For instance, even a single episode of major depression can reshape circuits of the brain to make future episodes more likely.

The remedy is not to suppress negative experiences; when they happen, they happen. Rather, it is to foster positive experiences—and in particular, to really take them in so they become a permanent part of you.

INTERNALIZING THE POSITIVE
Here’s how, in three steps:

1. Turn positive facts into positive experiences. Good things keep happening all around us, but much of the time we don’t notice them; even when we do, we hardly feel them. Someone is nice to you, you see an admirable quality in yourself, a flower is blooming, you finished a difficult project—and it all just rolls by. Instead, actively look for good news, particularly the little stuff of daily life: the faces of children, the smell of an orange, a memory from a happy vacation, a minor success at work, and so on. Whatever positive facts you find, bring a mindful awareness to them—open up to them and let them affect you. It’s like sitting down to a banquet: don’t just look at it—dig in!

2. Savor the experience. It’s delicious! Make it last by staying with it for 5, 10, even 20 seconds; don’t let your attention skitter off to something else. Focus on your emotions and body sensations, since these are the essence of implicit memory. Let the experience fill your body and be as intense as possible. For example, if someone is good to you, let the feeling of being cared about bring warmth to your whole chest.

Pay particular attention to the rewarding aspects of the experience—for example, how good it feels to get a great big hug from someone you love. Focusing on these rewards increases dopamine release, which makes it easier to keep giving the experience your attention, and strengthens its neural associations in implicit memory. You’re not doing this to cling to the rewards—which would make you suffer—but rather to internalize them so that you carry them inside you and don’t need to reach for them in the outer world.

The longer that something is held in awareness and the more emotionally stimulating it is, the more neurons that fire and thus wire together, and the stronger the trace in memory (Lewis 2005). While you’re savoring an experience, your amygdala is busily highlighting its positive emotional meaning for your hippocampus, which integrates that information into its packaging of the experience for storage in long-term memory.

You can also intensify an experience by deliberately enriching it. For example, if you are savoring a relationship experience, you could call up other feelings of being loved by others, which will help stimulate oxytocin—the “bonding hormone”—and deepen your sense of relatedness. Or you could strengthen your feelings of satisfaction after completing a demanding project by thinking about some of the challenges you had to overcome.

3. Imagine or feel the experience is sinking deeply into your mind and body, like warm sun into a T-shirt, water into a sponge, or a jewel placed in a treasure chest in your heart. Keep relaxing your body and absorbing the emotions, sensations, and thoughts of the experience.
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Rick Hanson, Ph.D., is a neuropsychologist and meditation teacher. A summa cum laude graduate of the University of California, Los Angeles, he cofounded the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom and edits the Wise Brain Bulletin. http://www.wisebrain.org Check out Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience Of Happiness, Love & Wisdom if you want to take more control of your life in a mindful way by learning more tips like the ones in this excerpt. This has a Buddhist approach, which I fully agree with, because it focuses on your inner well-being, which radiates out to all th eareas of your life. I'll be reviewing this book next month.

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