Awesome Kristen asks: “I have been reading your blog lately and really getting interested in the way you present things. I am a burgeoning therapist and I am trying to reconcile some of what I’ve learned here with what I know about our brains on a neurobiological level. It seems to me that the LOA favors those brains that have been formed “correctly” so to speak. Most people can “overcome” limiting beliefs. Most people can raise their vibrations. But what about those people who, from early childhood or even the womb, have brains that do not function properly?

For example, attachment theory is the study of how an infant/young child relates to his or her caregiver. A child that is neglected will literally experience a wilting effect of neuropathways in the brain. They are not able to experience emotions the same way that you and I might and often have very skewed cognition. How is one to overcome something so seemingly insurmountable with pure belief when belief and emotion are concepts not even within their grasp? These connections or lack thereof are produced before higher cognition is readily available. Could you help me understand this?”

Dearest Awesome Kristen,

You can’t know what someone else’s experience is

First of all, let’s remember that we can never really objectively know what someone else is experiencing. We can assume, we can guess, we can empathize, and we can imagine what WE would feel in their position. But we can’t know. This concept was brought home to me powerfully just a couple of weeks ago when someone shared a video with me. In it, an autistic girl, whom everyone had assumed was locked into her own, developmentally disabled world, began to communicate via a computer and shattered any preconceived notions we have about what an autistic person’s experience is really like. The problem is that we can only ever apply our own perspective to the experience of another, and since our perspectives can vary widely, our conclusions, no matter how logical, about what it’s like to be someone else, can be completely wrong.

So, while some people SEEM to be unable to process emotions “correctly”, this does not mean they are not processing feelings. They may simply be doing so in a very different way than we can currently understand. If someone seems to be unable to focus, it does not mean that they are not focusing. But they may be expressing that focus in a way WE can’t process.

You don’t need to know this crap in order for it to work

Ok, so this might sound a little counterintuitive, coming from someone who makes her living explaining the Law of Attraction in nitty gritty detail. But the truth is, the process that underlies LOA, including the emotional feedback system and the releasing of beliefs, works whether you understand it, or not. Some people find it very helpful to understand the framework in some way (I specialize in helping those people), but it’s not strictly necessary.

Small children, too young to cognitively understand emotions, can still experience the process by which beliefs are released. This is because it all comes down to energy. At the core of all this work, all these explanations, all these blog posts and funny pictures, etc., is just vibration. Frequency. Energy.

A young boy of six months who is trying to do something he cannot yet do, will get frustrated and will throw a little tantrum. He might pump his fists and cry a little. But generally speaking, if given the opportunity, he’ll recover very quickly and become distracted by something new. He’ll form a belief, “I can’t do this. Something is wrong!”, that belief will feel bad, he’ll have an emotional reaction – the tantrum, and then he’ll feel relief and move on. Tadaaa! He just shifted some energy and found his balance again. If we could all allow ourselves to do that, there would be no limiting beliefs. Unfortunately, we’ve learned that feeling bad is just a part of life and should be tolerated.

Animals shift energy. They aren’t as specifically focused as we are, and they generally have a higher vibration than we do, so they don’t often experience the range of contrast (bad stuff) that we do. But they have their own resistance and they shift energy.

Being smart can be a hindrance

Having a cognitive understanding of our world isn’t necessarily helpful when it comes to shifting beliefs. The content on my site is geared towards intelligent people, precisely because they face unique challenges when it comes to this work. The better you “understand” the rules of this world, even if they are wrong, the harder it will be for you to change your mind. It’s your mind, in fact, that will fight you. You need to deliver a lot of evidence before it will accept a whole different paradigm.

I’m not saying that stupid people have it easier (I’m not saying that they don’t…), but what I am saying is that cognitive understanding is not at all necessary in order to do this work, and is, in fact, a hindrance. Nature reacts to changes, some good, some bad, and rebalances itself. Shifting energy or releasing beliefs is simply a way of rebalancing. One could argue that nature is often much wiser than we are, and yet, all it has access to is the wisdom of pure intuition. Huh.

Can a lack of emotions be a good thing?

So, if someone is born with cognitive impairment, it can allow them to have a very different, often much more positive (potentially) experience than the rest of us, simply because they aren’t going to be making as many bullshit decisions as we tend to do. A lack of understanding of beliefs and thoughts leads to LESS limiting beliefs.

But what about if someone can’t process emotions the way we do? Well, again, I have to remind us all that we can’t really ever know what someone is experiencing. So, just because someone doesn’t seem to be expressing or even feeling emotions in a way we can understand, that doesn’t mean that they aren’t doing it. Everyone experiences feedback, but they don’t necessarily express it the same way. Everyone experiences intuition. They may not listen to it, but they do feel it or have the potential to feel it. We are all energetic beings, no matter how we’ve chosen to manifest our physical representations. And we’re all connected to Who We Really Are. No exceptions.

Keeping in mind that everyone experiences some kind of feedback, you may begin to look these patients in a completely different way. Assume that there’s more going on in there than you can perceive (and than you may ever be able to fully understand). Assume that nothing has gone wrong. The Universe doesn’t make mistakes. Just because you don’t understand why someone would manifest their condition doesn’t mean there’s not a really good reason.

Simply put, having an emotional “impairment” allows the individual to experience their reality in a very different way. They may not be encumbered by the same emotional baggage as the rest of us, or held back by the same understanding of the wrong framework. Of course, this doesn’t mean that they don’t experience suffering or resistance. Of course they do, as each of us does. They’re just having a REALLY unique time of it.

How do we help them?

Now that I’ve explained why someone might manifest a difference in how they process emotions, let’s take a look at what I believe is at the core of your question: How can you help an individual who seems to be lacking the ability to process emotions the way that the rest of us do?

The short answer is: you can’t. Since there’s nothing wrong with them, they don’t need fixing. They do not need to learn how to process their emotions OUR way. They have THEIR way, and it’s just as valid, thank you very much. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t help them when they’re suffering. Here are some tips (a lot of these are good tips for your practice in general, actually. You’re welcome.):

• Remember that your patient has to be a match to being helped, or nothing you do will make a difference. Set a strong intention to attract ONLY those whom you can help.
• Remember that you cannot know what their experience is. If you approach the individual with the assumption that they’re not “normal”, and that something has gone wrong, you won’t make much headway. If, however, you assume that there is a good reason for their condition, that perhaps they’ve come to experience life in their own, unique and perfectly valid way, then you’ll get farther.
• Assume that there is more going on that you can perceive. Try to let go of all your preconceived notions (and I realize that this is going to contradict the desire to compare what you can perceive to previous cases and what’s in the textbooks. Tough titties.)
• Prepare yourself energetically before you even meet. Do not expect anything specific to happen (no preconceived notions, remember?), but focus on the feeling you want to achieve. Place yourself into a state of love. If you can achieve this high vibration and stabilize there (don’t allow the circumstances around you to bring you out of it), you’ll find that your interactions with ALL patients will be vastly different.
• Understand that even if your patient doesn’t seem to be processing emotions in the way you understand, there will be one constant: There will be BETTER and WORSE. They can feel suffering and relief. Some things will agitate them and some will soothe them. You stated in your question that “Most people can raise their vibrations.” I’d like to contradict that: ALL people (and things and just “stuff”) can raise their vibrations. Even a houseplant can have a higher or lower vibration. And all people (and things, blah, blah) can be affected by the vibrations around them, if they allow it (which almost everyone does.) I’ve had the pleasure of experiencing this first hand: Years ago, I volunteered with severely handicapped children. They couldn’t express themselves or interact at all. There was no recognition that they had any idea what was going on. Until we took them to the pool and immersed them gently in the warm water. I worked with a little girl and would help her float in the water, which was clearly pleasurable for her. This child who couldn’t speak, couldn’t look at me, could do pretty much nothing all day but sit in her wheelchair and drool, would get a look of intense delight on her face when she was in the water. From my perspective, she was completely present in the moment and by doing so, helped me to do the same. It was beautiful and it’s safe to say that BOTH our vibrations were significantly raised by the experience.
• Use your intuition. Feel your way through an interaction with the individual. Again, this may not jive with your psychology training, since you may be inspired to interact in a way that isn’t part of normal treatment protocol. Oh well.
• Remember that the individual is perceiving life differently and will therefore interact differently. This may be true even if they can express themselves verbally. Just because someone can talk doesn’t mean that they’re speaking your language.
• Focus mostly on vibrational interaction. Send love to the patient. Accept them as they are, and understand that nothing has gone wrong. They are not broken. They don’t need to be fixed. Sit with them and notice how your energy affects them. You may be in for some really interesting findings.
• Allow this individual to experience their reality in their own way. The goal is not to make them like everyone else. It’s to help them find their own joy. Do your best to interact with them on their level, whenever possible. Use music, sounds, soft textures, different lighting, and whatever else you can think of to try and bring about relief.
• And, most importantly: Figure out what it is you’re trying to achieve. If your desire is to truly help, then make sure you’re working towards THEIR goals, not yours. Use visualization to focus on that goal in a way that feels really good to you, and then allow yourself to be inspired to the action and methodology that will bring it about. And if, in the process, you come up with a whole new branch of psychology, so be it.

Bottom line

When someone is born with different and what we consider to be limited abilities, we have this tendency to think that something has gone wrong and that we need to help them overcome their obstacles. This isn’t generally true, though. A different experience is not worse. It’s simply different. But, if you’re treating those who seem to be severely limited in their cognitive or emotional capabilities, you’ll have to use your intuition more than ever. Recognize them as vibrational beings who are seeking joy and who are being called to it. You don’t need to help them do that. But you can ease their way by helping them find relief. Try anything that makes them feel better. That’s the key. Of course, that’s not bad advice for the rest of your patients, either. Just saying…

Coaching Call #049 came out yesterday. The topic of this weeks’ call is: She Wants to Have a Successful Music Career.

I think this might be the post passionate call I’ve ever done (I love working with artists. The energy is just amazing). This caller is a professional singer who’s in the midst of making a comeback after taking a break. She’s battling both her own doubts and fears as well as those of her manager. Will she lose everything, or can she line herself up with the success she knows, deep down, is hers for the taking?

This call is for artists and creative types of any kind. We also go heavily into fears of financial ruin, making money in an economic “crisis”, and beliefs that tie one’s financial well-being to the actions of others. So, you know, it’s pretty much for everyone.

See the full call summary here.

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So, you finally go on vacation and the first thing that happens is that you get a raging head cold. You shift some energy and find a better feeling emotional place, only to wake up nauseous the next day. You finally manage to stand up to your passive aggressive mother in law, and promptly get a herpes blister on your lip. What the hell, Universe? Are you being punished for being kind to yourself? Is the Universe sending you a message that you’re doing it wrong? Or, perhaps it’s the answer behind door number three – there’s a perfectly good explanation for what’s happening. I’ll give you teensy hint: It’s door number 3, y’all.

This isn’t a metaphor, people

You’re not being punished for being kind to yourself and you’re not doing it wrong. When you shift energy from a lower to a higher state, you are actually shifting energy. This isn’t some metaphor, or some theoretical blah-blah, you are actually changing from a lower frequency to a higher one. And this, dun-dun-dun-dunnnnnn, has consequences.

Actually, that isn’t quite accurate. When you hold on to beliefs and thoughts that don’t serve you, when you focus on frequencies that contract the vibration of Who You Really Are and what you really want, and you do it for a long enough time, THAT has consequences. First, you feel some negative emotion. If you’re sensitive enough, you’ll be able to notice this feedback at this early stage and do something about it (focus in a way that feels better). But if, like most people alive today, you were taught not to pay attention to your stupid, unnecessary, girly feelings, and push on ahead, the discord created by this resistance (the contradictory frequency) will manifest in bigger and more obvious ways.

When the non-physical becomes physical

When you think a thought, you actually begin to vibrate at the frequency of that thought. If the thought is “positive”, if it matches or closely resembles the thought you want to be thinking, it’s said to have a high frequency. So, if you’re thinking “I love myself” (or I love [insert anything here]), that will match what Who You Really Are (which, incidentally, is also Who You Really Want To Be) is thinking. This thought will feel good. If you think “OMG, I can’t believe how stupid I am!”, that will not match what Who You Really Are is thinking. This thought will feel bad.

What few people realize is that the feeling, the emotion, is already a type of physical manifestation. Emotions are actually caused by chemical processes in the brain. So, when you focus on a thought, the distance between that thought and the one you REALLY want to think will create a response. Your brain then translates that response into all kinds of wonderful (and not so wonderful) chemicals, which are then distributed throughout your body. When you have an extreme emotional response, you’ll actually feel it somewhere in your physical body. Anxiety can make your stomach hurt. Grief can actually make your heart tighten up painfully. Disgust can make your skin crawl with pins and needles and goosebumps, etc. But even in the more subtle stages, emotions are already a physical manifestation of the energy we’ve attuned ourselves to.

When we hold on to a contradictory frequency or “resistance” for any length of time, that discord is spread throughout our energy body AND our physical body. Your body is always trying to find balance, but since you and your focus are the boss, it must mirror the vibration you’re holding on to back to you. It will seek the frequency of What You Really Want, but will have to respond to what you’re actually focusing on.

To put it in simpler terms: Your body wants to be whole and healthy and balanced and a happy shiny puppy. But if you keep focusing on stuff that feels bad, it creates an actual, physical response that mucks up the works. You might as well be eating poison. That’s right, your thoughts are actually translated into physical responses that either help or hurt your body. Hold on to the resistance long enough, and you’ll create physical ailments and eventually, disease.

Taking out the trash

Now, let’s say that you’ve been focusing on all kinds of ugly, bad feeling, gunky thoughts. You’ve been holding yourself in a situation that doesn’t feel good, because of obligation or some other bullshit reason. You’ve been suffering because you figure that your pain will translate into gain at some point. You’ve been sacrificing yourself for others, for work, for God or whatever. In other words, you’ve been doing stuff that doesn’t feel good.

And then you stop. You go on vacation and relax. You take up meditation. You hire a coach or do some energy work yourself and manage to gain a different perspective. You start to think better feeling thoughts. You begin to focus on a frequency that’s more closely aligned with Who You Really Are. This is a good thing. Only now that you’ve done that, your physical body also has to shift. As the beneficial changes you’ve just made to your energy body translate into the physical, your body begins to heal, which may entail physical symptoms of that healing. This is called “purging”, and it’s basically a way for your body to take out the trash.

You may not realize just how much of an effect your workaholism has had on your body, for example. But when you go on vacation and your whole system seems to break down into a mucus-y, sniffly, stuffy, achey breaky mess, that’s your body rebalancing itself and undoing all the damage you’ve been doing by not noticing just how bad it feels to work 18 hours a day. The worse your purging symptoms are, the greater the energy shift achieved and/or, the more damage the resistance you’ve just released was doing.

Purging symptoms

Purging can take many forms. Here are a few I’ve noticed:

• Increased Fatigue (the need to sleep a lot more)
• Yawning
• Crying
• Nausea, stomach ache, vomiting (puking is an extreme symptom, usually brought on by large shifts like the ones achieved in shamanic ceremonies)
• Diarrhea or simply increased pooping (Ha! Made you laugh!)
• Flu like symptoms, head cold
• Heavier menstrual cycle, increased cramping
• Jittery, manic energy (NOT the euphoria that comes after a shift. This usually shows up after the purging)
• Problems falling asleep or staying asleep
• Lack of appetite
• Increased appetite and cravings
• Increased mucus production (stuffy nose, mucus in the throat, coughing)
• Increased sensitivity to hot and cold temperatures
• Etc.

You may have noticed that these symptoms are all over the place and many of them contradict each other. This is because everyone purges differently. Not only that, but some people will tend to have a lot of physical symptoms, while others may have very few or even none, no matter how much energy work they do. You are an individual, unique flower in this Universe. You get to have your own, individual, unique purging symptoms.

Don’t fight it

Purging is a good thing, if not always convenient. The best possible thing you can do is to honor your body and just go with it. If you get sick or tired, rest. Don’t try to push through it. You want this stuff to come out. This is as a physical manifestation of the negative energy you are releasing. It is a rebalancing of physical consequences your body has already suffered. Allow it to happen.

In many cases, you’ll find that you’re grateful for the “excuse” to relax and take it easy, if you allow yourself to do so. While having a head cold isn’t fun, getting plenty of sleep or spending the day in front of the TV and doing nothing can feel like a huge relief from the ordeal you’re normally putting yourself through. Pay attention to that.

If you don’t fight the symptoms but succumb to them, if you take your body’s cue and just take it easy for a bit, the symptoms will pass much faster. If you resist the purging you are, in fact, creating more resistance. Think about it.

Bottom line

This purging will not last forever, nor will you always have to suffer as much when you shift some energy. As you clean up your vibration more and more, the symptoms will get lighter. You may have some stomach issues today, but within a few months of deliberately feeling better, you may find that your purging takes the form of crying, instead. If you no longer put the same pressure on yourself at work, you’ll no longer get sick when you go on vacation. If you learn to stand up for yourself on a regular basis and honor your boundaries all the time, your body will no longer need to react to the one time you do it.

Allow your body to do what it needs to do. It’s simply finding its balance and undoing all the damage that was done by focusing in a way that didn’t serve you. It’s healing. All you have to do is let it.

Have you experienced purging symptoms? Share in the comments! I love to read what you have to say!

That’s right, you read correctly: today I’m going to share a concept with you that can change your life. It’s definitely changed mine and those of my clients. Like all LOA techniques, it’s not really difficult, and yet you may find yourself struggling with it at first (then, it’ll get easier). In fact, your mind may tell you that it’s far too simple to make a real difference. Don’t listen to that crap. Your mind is an effing liar. Are you ready? Here we go:

Meet Bob

Bob is having a hard time lately. He really, really hates his job. When he comes home at night, he tells his wife all about how his boss is a jerk, his co-workers are back stabbing, credit stealing douchebags, how his work is so deeply unsatisfying that he spends his days thinking up creative ways to commit suicide using office supplies, how the commute sucks, how the economy is in the crapper, making it impossible to find a new job, how even if he did manage to find a new job it would just suck, too because all companies are the same, how everyone but him is a total idiot, how all those idiots are making his life hell, and what’s the point of any of this anyway… Bob will give the same speech at the pub with his friends. They’ll sit around drinking one beer after another, hoping to numb the pain a little bit, while dissecting in minute detail just why exactly everything sucks so badly. Theories about whose fault it is (government, the CEO’s, the Illuminati, parents, other people i.e. “idiots”, women, fathers, the greeting card industry, the flying Spaghetti monster, etc.) will abound, with reasons laid out so logically and well prepared it’s a wonder there aren’t any Powerpoint slides to back up the presentation with.

Bob and his friends put a lot of thought and effort into figuring out just how bad the magnitude of the general suckitude is, why and how it got that way, and why it’s impossible for anything to change.

Sound familiar, anyone?

Focusing on the problem

Now, Bob might think that what he’s doing is “defining the problem”. He’s figuring out what he doesn’t like and why he doesn’t like it. And I’ll agree with him on that point. He is doing that. Only, he’s doing it and doing it and doing it and not doing anything BUT that. Defining a problem doesn’t take long. You can generally figure it out in a few minutes, sometimes even seconds. Some really big problems might take a few days. But if you’re defining a problem for weeks, months, or years, you’re not figuring out what you don’t like. You’re pushing against a door marked “pull”, while bitching about the fact that it won’t open.

When you focus on what you don’t want and why you don’t want it, you’re adding energy and momentum to what you don’t want. That means, you’re going to attract more of it into your life. Bob’s incessant complaining about and dissecting of his sucky job is causing him to experience a worse and worse environment at work. He’s meeting up with his boss and co-workers when they’re in the foulest of moods, calling clients at the worst possible moment, and leaving work when the commute is at its most awful.

But, this is generally what we do: We define a problem to death. If you’ve ever heard yourself say “And I’ll tell you another thing that sucks about…”, you’ve experienced the downward spiral that focusing on what you don’t want causes. It becomes easier and easier to think of aspects of this situation that you don’t like. In fact, you never realized just how bad the situation is, until you had a chance to bitch about it incessantly for two hours with your friends!

Meet Suzie

I’ll give you another example: Suzie went on a date last night. The guy seemed pretty nice, and they had a good time, but at the end of the date, he didn’t kiss her good night. The next day, Suzie has lunch with her friends, where they dissect the date in minute detail. The overall date was quite a good experience, however, Suzie is disappointed that the guy didn’t kiss her and sees this as a sign that something must’ve gone wrong. First, she gives her friends a play by play of the date, including every word said, every breath taken, every eyelash that was batted. And as she focuses on “something must be wrong”, and as her friends encourage her to find something wrong with HIM rather than HERSELF, she begins to remember all kinds of details that bugged her. Even though none of these things bothered her last night, they suddenly loom large in the light of day.

He seemed kind of quiet when she was talking about her job. He’s probably totally intimidated by powerful women (he couldn’t just have been listening, right?). He didn’t pull out her chair for her at the restaurant! He has no manners (never mind that she got to the table first and sat down before he had a chance to pull out her chair, or that she had no expectation of him doing so at the time)! He ordered for her/didn’t order for her. He flirted with the waitress. Sort of. Ok, she flirted with him and he didn’t immediately get up on the table and proclaim loudly that he was on a date and therefore OFF LIMITS, YOU SLUTS! He was actually just being friendly, but now that she’s thinking about it, he should’ve intuitively sensed her discomfort and done something. What an asshole.

Before she knows what’s happened, Suzie’s date goes from a pleasant experience to one of the worst dates of her freaking life. The more she focuses on the negatives, the more she finds. Hell, her mind will even make up some evidence if it needs to.

Where are the positives?

Both Bob and Suzie are doing what most of the population does when it sees something it doesn’t like. And this is one area where being intelligent really doesn’t help. Those of us who like to be analytical tend to dissect things in greater detail. We will figure out to the last molecule why something doesn’t meet our standards. We’re always looking for what could be done better, and consequently what isn’t good enough. And in doing so, of course we find loads and loads of evidence.

But, what about the positives? Take Bob’s job: is EVERYTHING about it really horrible? Or are there some good aspects to it? Well, Bob generally doesn’t think about them, but when he does, he gives them only a cursory mention. “Ok, so my boss isn’t a total jerk. He did go to bat for us on that project. But that doesn’t make up for [insert huge list of offenses by jerky boss].” The positives are footnotes, at best, with the negatives being the main show. And the opening act. And the encore. And the CD you buy and take home to listen to after the show. I think you get my point.

Why we like to bitch

But why do we insist on complaining about what we don’t like in such great detail? Well, first of all, we’ve been taught from an early age that if you want to change anything, you’ve got to figure out what the problem is. If you just understand the problem enough, you can figure out a solution. And so, we dissect and dissect and dissect. “Those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it” becomes the mantra we use to justify this incredibly one sided focus. Only, that’s a bunch of crap.

Those who focus incessantly on history are doomed to repeat it. Why? Because you get what you focus on. Can you learn from history? Absolutely. But not unless you actually shift your focus off of the problem and onto the solution. You actually have to be willing to see the lesson in order to learn from it. And that’s the step that most people totally miss.

The second reason why we love to complain so much is because it can be quite satisfying, at least in the short run. There’s something happening that we don’t like. We feel badly about it. But we also feel powerless to change it (false belief). When we discuss, in minute detail, what we hate and why we hate it, and get others to agree with us (ever notice how no one likes to bitch alone?), it’s like we’re being given permission to feel the way we feel. We’re being told that we’re RIGHT. And that feels kind of good. It doesn’t hold a candle to how good the solution would feel, but hey, we don’t believe in solutions, so this is the best we can do, right? *cough, cough*

What to do instead

I’d like to present you with an alternative option: Do the exact opposite of what you’ve been doing. Treat the negatives as footnotes and make the positives the main show. Why? Because that’s what you want more of, and you get more of what you focus on!

What would that look like in the real world? Well, you’d log onto Facebook or the blogosphere and see postings like this:

• I love my job because…
• I have the best husband/wife/mother in law because…
• Here are five reasons why I love my job.
• Ten reasons why I have the best boss in the world (and how you can too!)
• The top 100 reasons why I’m so damn awesome.

When Bob goes to the pub with his friends, they would ask each other questions like “What went right today?”, “What are you proud of today?” and “What did your boss and coworkers do today that you can appreciate them for?” In the beginning, Bob might have a hard time coming up with examples, but just like the negative spiral pulls you down and builds momentum making it easier and easier to criticize, the positive spiral works the same way. After just a little bit of positive focus, Bob suddenly remembers all kinds of little details that made him smile. The little kindnesses, the donuts someone brought, the fact that he didn’t need to do that report he didn’t want to do, etc. The fact that his boss fought for them on that project would take the main stage, with the group dissecting just why that was so awesome and why it felt so good. Negatives would get cursory mentions, “Yeah, he was in a bad mood yesterday, but he’s probably really tired. Did you hear that he’s trying to get us all raises? How awesome is that?”

When Suzie meets up with the girls the day after her date, they ask her all about his best qualities. So what that he didn’t kiss her, they say. It may be a sign that he really liked her and doesn’t want to rush it. Isn’t that respectful and wonderful? And as she gives them the play by play, she remembers all kinds of little wonderful details. The way he smiled when she opened the door. How he put his hand on her hip when they walked through the restaurant. The way he appreciated her offering to the pay the bill, but insisted on picking it up. The way his arms felt when he hugged her good night. Oh wait, he hugged her good night! And it was a really nice hug! It lasted way longer than a normal hug! In the other scenario where negativity reigned, that little nugget was totally missed.

Talk about what you want. Incessantly.

Instead of focusing relentlessly on what you don’t want, talk about what you do want, why you want it, what you like, and why you like it. Dissect it, play with it, discuss it with others, ask questions designed to elicit positive responses, be like a dog with a bone. A really, really tasty, positive, happy, shiny bone.

When you hear others talking about what they don’t want, ask them “So, what is that you’d like to see happen instead?” You may need to keep reminding them to go positive a few times, but more people than you may have ever imagined will be willing to answer that question. Some people will insist on bitching. Don’t play with those people. But a larger segment of the population than ever before, while generally negatively focused, will be happy to focus positively when given a chance to do so. Give them that chance. Give yourself that chance.

If you can’t figure out what you want, if you can’t seem to focus positively, then change the subject for a while. Look for something that you can feel good about already. That’ll help. In other words, if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all. Or, to put it even more bluntly: Be positive or shut up.

Does this mean that you can’t EVER complain?

This is a question that many struggle with. Is it really NEVER ok to complain? Should we censor ourselves and everyone around us ALL THE FREAKING TIME? Well, considering that I’m a fairly heavy user of sarcasm myself, I feel it would be hypocritical of me to teach others that they can never voice a complaint. Not to mention that I don’t believe in absolutes, such as NEVER.

I believe that if we put the majority of our focus on what we want, then the occasional bitch session will do no damage. And let’s face it, sometimes it’s not only quite gratifying but also fun. And funny. Every once in a while, it feels good to just let the nasty out. I see this as the equivalent of throwing a little tantrum. I bitch for a few minutes, justifying why something sucks and why I don’t like it, and then, when I’ve had enough of that (which generally happens quite quickly these days), I turn my attention to what I want instead. I see it as a teensy weensy anger release. If it’s got to come out, it’s better to let it out than suppress it. And, if I do let it out, it generally passes within a few minutes and I feel better.

You don’t have to be 100% positive. As long as you’re focused on what you want over 50% of the time, you’re golden. So yes, you still get to bitch a bit. Just don’t make it your default setting and most of all,  be aware of what it is that you’re doing. Involve as few people as possible (the more people are involved, the longer the bitch session will be and the more momentum you will gather. It’s easier to control the length and put a stop to it when your audience is small.) And above all, as soon as you’re sick of complaining, make sure you spend even MORE time on talking about what you want instead, what you like and what you want to attract more of.

It seems like a simple thing (until you try to do it), but it will change your life. Why not give it a try and then report your findings in the comments? I can’t wait to read what you come up with!

Coaching Call #048 was released yesterday. The topic of this week’s call is: She Wants to Attract More Friends Without Seeming Desperate.

This caller lost many of her friends when she decided to be more positive. Now, she finds herself reaching out others, but feels like she’s desperately asking them to like her. On top of that, she’s tired of always having to organize everything and would really like people to just come to her. Listen in as we explore why she’s feeling so needy and how she can attract precisely the kinds of friends she wants.

Of course, the lessons learned in this call apply not just to friendship, but to attracting people for any purpose: the perfect boyfriend, an awesome boss and amazing co-workers, and even just more positive interactions with people in general.

See the full call summary here.

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Awesome Dudette’s burning question is: “I’ve read a lot about empaths being in a time of crisis right now.  It’s been reported as a result of the negative energies rising on earth.  But I feel in my heart that it’s something else. Like we are all waking up at the same time. Most other empaths I’ve come into contact with are perpetually positive by nature, just like me.

So is it really just the result of the negative? Common sense would say there has always been just as much negative energy, so perhaps we can just feel it better now as our collective abilities awake? I’m just wondering if anyone else is sensing this wave of energy rising, and theories on why? I love reggae, and a line comes to me over and over when thinking about this… it is “we are all Jah army”.  It feels like we are preparing for something. I’m just not sure what.  Anyone else have this “sense”…?”

Dear Awesome Dudette,

First of all, there’s no such thing as “Negative” energy. There is no dark force, no evil and no energy that will bring you down. There is love and there is the resistance to love/the lack of love/the absence of love. But that resistance or absence is not a force in its own right. That’s one of the biggest misunderstandings that many religions perpetuate in the world today. There’s no devil, no evil, and not even a watered down, light version of that called “negative energy”.

Quite a few of my clients are light workers (actually, in a sense, they all are, they just don’t all consciously know it…), and this is a topic that comes up often. They’ll ask me how they can protect themselves against the negative energies of the people around them, of their clients and family members, and even the world in general. But, I’m afraid I have to call bullshit on that one.

Being sensitive is a double edged sword

Being an empath doesn’t make you more susceptible to dark or negative energy (which doesn’t exist. Honestly. And I’m going to keep saying it until it really sinks in). But it does make you more sensitive, so you can discern the difference between frequencies (those that feel good and those that don’t) more easily. This means that when other people think everything is fine, you’ll be able to tell that they are, in fact, in more pain than they’re letting on. They’re in a kind of denial, thinking that nothing is bothering them, when in fact, something totally is.

This sensitivity is a double edged sword, though. It also means that empaths can’t afford to be lazy. They can’t just observe what’s going on around them, let the energies of other people train them to go places they don’t want to go and not expect to “suffer” the consequences. But this suffering is, as always, self-inflicted. It comes from lack of focus, from lack of stability in one’s vibration (allowing ourselves to be influenced by other people’s energy), and, yes, from laziness. But all of these issues have solutions, and they’re not even that hard. It basically comes down to practice. More on that in just a bit (see section below on how to stabilize your vibration).

The great awaking

First, I’d like to answer the last part of your question: “It feels like we are preparing for something. I’m just not sure what.  Anyone else have this “sense”…?”

Yes, Awesome Dudette. I assure you that pretty much anyone and everyone with any kind of sensitivity to energy is experiencing what you are. It feels like something’s coming. Something big. Something awesome (ok, whether or not you are interpreting it as awesome or scary depends on your perspective, but you CAN experience it as awesome). And it seems to be speeding up.

We’re all feeling it. But what, exactly, are we feeling?

What we’re feeling is the rising energy (not negative energy, just energy). The vibration of the Universe is continuously rising. As frequencies get higher, they get faster, so everything is speeding up. The time between thought and manifestation is getting shorter.  It’s easier than ever to see the correlation between our focus and what shows up in our reality. But this also means that we have to be more responsible about what we place our powerful, reality creating focus on. We don’t have as much time to notice how we feel and correct our course before the physical manifestations show up. This can feel hectic and overwhelming (if you fight it or aren’t stable in your vibration), or it can feel like the best part of a roller coaster ride (Weeeeeeeeee!).

As the energy rises, more and more people are crossing the threshold that separates the two main states of consciousness:

The Victim State

• Stuff just randomly happens to us
• We’re all separate
• It’s all totally meaningless in the end
• No real awareness of emotions/suppression of emotions
• We are all essentially powerless
• There’s not enough (Scarcity)
• Win/Lose scenarios (My gain is your loss and your gain is my loss)

The Self-Aware State

• Nothing is random, everything happens as a response to vibration
• We are all integrally connected (unity)
• Nothing is meaningless. We are each more important than any of us have every glimpsed (including Jesus and Buddha)
• Total awareness of emotions and what they mean/allowing of emotions
• We are each the center of our own reality, in perfect control of our experience
• Everyone can have whatever they truly want. There’s more than enough to satisfy all desires (abundance)
• Win/Win scenarios (My gain is your gain. Your loss is my loss. When we truly benefit the individual, it benefits all. When we truly benefit all, it benefits the individual)

The whole universe is shifting and changing. We are entering a new era, a radically different way of looking at ourselves and the world. Not everyone will be talking about energy or the Law of Attraction. But the words we use aren’t important. The concepts and ideas behind the words are. I’m seeing a plethora of speeches and articles coming out by all kinds of prominent academics and business minds, who are telling young and old alike to start thinking differently (I often share these on Facebook, so if you’re not a fan of my page, you should become one). And people are listening. We are breaking out of the old paradigms. People are waking up and wondering why they ever decided it was a good idea to spend the majority of their lives working in a job they didn’t like. The payoff they promised suddenly seems paltry and even ridiculous in comparison. People are taking more “risks” and figuring out that there’s actually no real danger in following your passion. The real risk is in not doing so. People are becoming less and less willing to be grossly unhappy, unfulfilled and complacent.

The “Crisis!

And that’s this feeling of a kind of “crisis” you described. You see, waking up can be stressful, especially because most people require a cattle prod moment in order to be willing to really shift perspectives. They’re not willing to make a real change, to throw off the beliefs that never really served our ancestors but to which we’ve staunchly been holding on for generations, unless it becomes too uncomfortable not to. It’s a bit like realizing the world is round, and choosing to adopt that new belief. Only, that’s not quite accurate.

It’s more like everyone believes the world is flat and ON FIRE, and is running around in a panic. And more and people are realizing the world is round and NOT on fire. They then have to choose not to live in panic and fear anymore, but to calm down and observe what’s really true, even though everyone around them is still flailing about like a bunch of toddlers throwing simultaneous tantrums at an overcrowded toy store.

That kind of change of direction takes courage and conviction and isn’t done lightly. After all, that little ugly voice in your head may be whispering, “what if you’re wrong and we’re all slowly burning to death?” So, most people have to get to the point where they’re just too sick of being afraid all the time, and too tired to keep running around in a panic. So, they sit down. And they realize that there’s no smoke. If the world was on fire, wouldn’t there be smoke? Sure, some people have created fires in their panic and there’s some smoke from those flames, but where’s the rest? In fact, where’s the original fire?? And as they begin to ask those questions, they figure out that there was never any fire or smoke. It was all a myth;  a nasty little fairy tale;  essentially, a huge misunderstanding.

This shift, this awakening, is a pretty drastic one. And it can feel stressful, especially if you don’t know what’s happening (that’s why blogs like this one exist. If you understand the process, it makes it a lot easier to have an awesome experience and not freak out).

Why do some things seem to be getting worse?

As the energy rises and gets faster, any thoughts, ideas and beliefs that contradict that force are going to become more apparent. If you tie a rope to your arm and someone pulls on it, it’s going to create pressure. Tie the other end of the rope to a freight train and try to resist that, and it’s going to hurt. A lot. This is what you’re seeing in the world today: Those who are resisting love, those who insist on holding on to their limiting beliefs and continuing to live in the “Victim State” are going to suffer more and more (until they can’t take it anymore). And in that suffering, they rebel. They fight. They protest. They flail. They throw tantrums. They want the pain to stop. They do not understand that the pain and suffering are self-inflicted. They do not understand their own power. The very idea that they could be that powerful is incredibly scary to them, so much so, that they often find it offensive. They’re not yet ready to shift, but they’re getting there. Their cattle prod moment is coming.

The fact that there seems to be more violence and drama in the world today is a sign that people are moving closer and closer to that shift. They are rebelling with greater and greater violence, and will, when it all gets to be too much, break out of the old molds, throw off the shackles and finally be free. This is not just a change in paradigm. This is a revolution. This is evolution. We’re not just changing the rules, we’re changing the game. We’re correcting all those idiotic observations that have held us captive all these years (like that suffering is a good and virtuous thing). We’re waking up from a self-imposed nightmare. We are stopping the resistance, and learning to flow with the natural processes that have been in place long before we were thought into existence. We are stepping from the darkness (absence of light) into the light.

Stabilizing your vibration

Now that you understand what’s happening, the only question that remains is: How can you enjoy the ride? In order to do that, you have to learn to stabilize your vibration. There are many, many ways to do this (energy workers of all kinds have been looking for ways to do this for millennia), but I’m going to share my favorites with you today:

• First and foremost, pay attention to the feedback you’re getting. Notice any changes in your emotions, as well as your body. Discomfort of any kind (even a sore neck) is a signal. Don’t dismiss anything as “normal”. It’s not normal to not feel well, even if it’s just a little bit. And no, not even if you’re getting “older”.
• Pay attention to your focus (your feedback will help you with this). Continuously shift your focus to one that feels better. And yes, this takes some work and discipline. You’ve been trained to look for the worst case scenario. Retrain yourself to look for the outcome you want.
• Pay absolutely no attention to what anyone else thinks. Really. Ignore them. They are the ones running around convinced the world is on fire.
• Stop inundating yourself with the news. You will not become a total ignoramus. You can catch up on headlines at will, by dipping in and out. You can be aware of what’s going on without immersing yourself in the chaos. “Yes, they still think the world is on fire. They are protesting. Good for them! Now, let’s get back to focusing on the fact that there is no fire, and on helping those who are ready to see that, too.”
• Practice focusing in a positive way. Practice feeling good. The more you do this, the easier it will be for you to feel good no matter what. Even in a crowd full of panicky people.
• Do “grounding” work. Walk barefoot as much as possible, go outside (nature helps immensely). Or, just imagine yourself connecting with the earth, roots growing from your feet into the ground. Use water (taking a shower after energy work is a great way for me to ground myself. If I have to go out in public after coaching, I always take a shower first. It brings me back to the “real” world, and I’m not as wide open and susceptible to other people’s energy.
• Do not seek approval from others. Make peace with the idea that they may not agree with you, or may not like you (not everyone will, can or has to). When you seek approval, you are opening yourself up to their energy. The irony is, of course, that the less you care about their approval, the more people will give it to you. But not everyone. Never everyone.
• Meditate regularly.
• Do Yoga. It’s a great way to get to know your physical body, the feedback it provides and can be incredibly grounding. It brings your awareness back to the body.
• Immerse yourself in materials or activities that support your new view (the world is not on fire) and which make you feel good. While you don’t need agreement from others, it feels good and strengthens your convictions to spend some time being with or listening to those who already think and feel like you do.
• Do not try and convince anyone of your view. Arguing with them will lower your vibration to theirs. It’s not your job to wake them up. The Universe has got this. But you can support those who are in the process of waking up or have just woken up. That’s actually really fun.
• Make some space and time for yourself every day. Meditation is great for this, but any time you’re alone can serve you. If you commute to work, for example, use that time to listen in on your thoughts. What’s on your mind? How does it feel? Is there something you need to pay attention to? Don’t go through life on auto pilot. It’s those automatic thoughts that often make you susceptible to the influence of other people’s energy.
• Smile. Laugh. Look for opportunities to enjoy yourself. This goes a long, long way.
• Shut up more often. Listen to what’s going on around you; listen to what’s in your head; listen to what the Universe is trying to tell you; look for the gifts that others have for you. If you’re too intent on always being the teacher, you’ll forget to be the student.
• Remember that you are, in fact, a student. There’s always more to learn.
• Give others the benefit of the doubt. They’re all doing the best they can. No one suffers on purpose. Those who choose suffering do so because they don’t believe that there’s another viable option.
• Love. Love as much as you can. Love everyone. Love unconditionally. Love them even if they don’t “deserve” it. It’s not for their benefit. It’s for yours.

Bottom line

This is an awesome time to be alive. We are witnessing the birth of a new era, and we’re right smack dab in the middle of it. We are the generation that all those who come after us (which is really going to be us, just saying) will look back on with wonder. This will have been the time when everything changed. Violence will become unnecessary. Scarcity will be a concept from the “dark ages”. Peace will trump war. Love will release hate (and swaddle it and kiss it on the forehead). Hugs will be given more freely (squishy, full body hugs, as they are meant to be given!). Passion will prevail. Hearts will rule. Smiles will abound. It’s coming. Not someday, but now. Are you ready? If you are, well then, Weeeeeeeeeeee!

Image Credit: Nathanael Lark

911. Columbine. The 2004 Tsunami. The London and Madrid Bombings. The Connecticut School Shootings. The Boston Marathon. Every time a major tragedy happens, I get a lot of questions asking me how something like this could’ve happened. Many of my coaching clients have struggled with these kinds of events. And while I was happy to provide each of them with a tailored response, I couldn’t seem to write a blog post meant for a larger audience. I felt that the incidents were just too recent. People were still too raw. They wouldn’t be able to hear the perspective I would offer, and would find my comments disrespectful and hurtful. It’s never my intention to poke at people’s pain, and so, I held off.

And even though we just had another tragedy, the Boston Marathon, I somehow feel that the time is right. Perhaps people have become a little more desensitized. Perhaps the sheer volume of pain has worn them down to the point where they are willing to accept a different, better feeling point of view.

I obviously received the following question a few months ago, but I feel it perfectly represents all the mails I’ve received about this topic.

Awesome Susan asks: “I’ve had a question on my mind since the Connecticut school shooting last week. I don’t understand how LOA applies to horrific acts such as these. And I also don’t generally understand how it applies to children – there is no way I can believe that they “attracted” getting shot and killed. Makes no sense. But I’m guessing my view is way zoomed in or something.”

Death is not a punishment

Before I can properly explain how and why these kinds of tragedies happen, it’s important to spend a little time on the general subject of death. In the post, Dear LOA: How Do We Manifest Death?, I explain that Death is not a negative manifestation. Particularly Western society makes death out to be something horrible, a mistake, a tragedy. When someone whom we have deemed to be “too young” dies, we ask “what did he do to deserve this?” But that question is based on an enormous fallacy.

We don’t die because we did something wrong. We don’t even die because we have a lot of resistance. If that were the case, unhappy people would be dropping like flies, while the happy people would live forever. But that’s not the case, is it? The Germans have a saying: “Unkraut vergeht nicht”, which loosely translates to “Bad weeds never die.” It’s an expression often cited to explain why nasty people live so damn long and speaks to a deep seeded belief of unfairness. The good die young. The bad will outlive us all. And isn’t that just horrible.

Only, here’s the thing: death isn’t a negative manifestation. You don’t die because you deserved it, did something or didn’t do something. You die when you’re ready to continue your journey in the non-physical. It’s a transition, not an ending. It can be a relief from suffering, but it doesn’t happen because you suffered enough or too much. Death is not a manifestation, at all, really. It’s a means to an end. You die as a way of continuing your journey in a way that’s most conducive to what you want. We shift into a different dimension (we don’t actually go anywhere. We’re still here. Just not as obviously perceptible) because that new dimension is more conducive to us continuing to manifest what we want and play in the way we want to.

When someone dies, it’s not because anything went wrong. And the fact that they died says absolutely nothing about what kind of person they were, what they deserved (we all deserve joy, no matter what), or what they did or didn’t do. HOW they died, however, does carry a great deal of information.

The experience of death is a co-creation

When someone dies, they do so because it was time for them to transition. The death itself is not a co-creation. No one can cause another person to die (No, not even by murder). So, your grandfather’s death was not your fault. You can’t manifest the death of another. But you can manifest your experience of it.

Everyone who experiences a death is a part of the co-creation of that experience. When a grandfather dies, the entire family experiences it. Perhaps some friends of the family do, as well. Each person will experience this death in their own way. The way that gramps transitioned, will be the perfect manifestation for all involved.

For example, if someone falls into a coma for a few weeks before passing on, it usually means that they were giving the family enough time to say goodbye. It makes for a more gentle transition for those “left behind” than a sudden death. Comas are a way of detaching. They can be healing or a way to mostly transition before fully withdrawing focus. Often, the dying person holds on until all of the living who are involved are ready to let go.

When someone dies tragically, the death is usually experienced with a great deal more pain. The experience of such a death will mirror the incredibly false and powerless beliefs that each “surviving” individual has about death. And, in overcoming that pain, each person will have the opportunity to release those beliefs and find more peace around the idea of death.

When someone dies painfully (and they experience that pain), they are experiencing their own resistance. It isn’t the death that mirrors the resistance, but the pain of letting go. In death, there is no resistance. As soon as we’re “dead”, we let go of all our resistance and rise to an incredibly high vibration. But, some people have a really hard time letting go of their fears and limiting beliefs, even at the end. This is then mirrored by the way they experience their own death.

When deaths are public

When someone dies in a public way, or their death becomes public for some reason or another, the incident is mirroring back the energy of a great many people. Racially motivated shootings stir up our beliefs about racism, and in doing so, give us the opportunity to shift into a different perspective. Believing that someone was killed simply for their race causes us to want peace more than ever. Those who are steeped in powerless beliefs will first move into anger (anger is the emotion that pulls us out of powerlessness, and there are no beliefs that evoke greater powerlessness than the ones we carry about death), but in doing so, they are actually taking the first step towards lining up with a world filled with fairness, equality, peace and love.

When a large number of people hold on to limiting beliefs and have done so for a long time, the mass manifestations will get worse and worse (just as it happens in our own lives, on an individual basis). The pain becomes greater and greater, until we’ve finally had enough and are willing to let go of the beliefs that are causing the pain. Mass manifestations aren’t any different than individual manifestations. They just happen on a bigger level.

You cannot know how someone experienced their death

Another aspect that’s hard for us to make peace with, is the suffering of innocents. When children die, we cannot reconcile why they were made to suffer. You may be thinking “even if I can accept that these tragedies were designed as a kind of “wake up call”, and even if I can get my head around the idea that death is not the end and not really a tragedy, I still can’t fathom how the suffering of children could possibly be helpful in any way.”

The answer is: it’s not. The Universe doesn’t require children to suffer. And no matter how low a society’s or community’s vibration happens to be, it CANNOT manifest suffering into the life of a child, or anyone else. Remember that every person manifests their own reality and their own experience. If someone experiences suffering as they die, it is a manifestation of their own resistance (NOT a punishment, but simply an unwillingness to let go. When you fight the energy of Who You Really Are in life or death, it hurts). If you perceive someone’s death to have been full of suffering, that’s your manifestation.

The truth is, you cannot ever really know how someone experienced their death. You can guess, you can assume, you can even imagine how you would experience that death, but you can’t know their experience. Ever.

In the absence of resistance, there is no pain in dying. This means that a happy child, who carried little resistance (and didn’t come here to pick any up and shift it) will NOT have suffered in death, no matter what it looks like. The spirit can withdraw from the physical enough so that the body can continue to function, even look lucid, but little or no physical sensation actually remains. A person who is not a match to terror and pain cannot manifest terror and pain. It’s entirely possible for someone who got shot to have withdrawn enough from the physical to not have experienced the incident at all. Their body would’ve continued on auto-pilot, playing the part that was necessary for the mass vibration it was designed to mirror, but the majority of that individual’s focus would’ve already been in the non-physical. It’s like dialing down your awareness to a really low level.

If you’ve ever had the experience of coming home and knowing that you drove but not actually remembering the drive at all, you’ll have glimpsed a bit of this auto-pilot. You were there but not really aware. Or, if you’ve ever woken up to realize that you’ve been sleeping on your arm, but don’t feel the pain of it until you’re fully aware, you’ll get the idea of what it’s like to be aware of the body, but feel no sensation. I’m not saying that no one who dies tragically feels pain, but I am saying that those who are not a match to pain CANNOT manifest it.

Why are happy children dying?

People often point out to me that the children and young people who died often seemed to have been free of resistance. They were happy shiny puppies, full of life and joy, an inspiration to all who met them. People describe them as angels. Why would particularly these kinds of light workers choose to transition, and often in such horrific ways?

We are each here for various reasons. At our core, we’re here to experience joy. But, we also know that there are obstacles to that joy – resistance. We know before we come here that there are beliefs that we will pick up at birth and beyond, that will contradict what we want. Some of us choose to be born into pockets of massive resistance. Yes, we CHOOSE this. It’s an ambitious endeavor. We come with a massive desire to uplift and be happy, so massive that we know that it will help us overcome this resistance. Of course, when a huge amount of resistance meets a huge desire for joy, there’s going to be a massive clash. It’s going to be a painful first few years. But, this is how the world is changed. This is how evolution happens. Bit by bit, belief by belief, we each shift and transmute energy from a lower level to a higher one. Some people come in to shift a bit, and some people come in to shift a lot. We each play our part. A painful childhood does not have to mean a painful adulthood. And it’s in the realization of that, and the choosing of a happier life despite what has come before that the Universe and everything in it expands, evolves, becomes more, bigger, better. This is what causes the Universal vibration to keep rising.

Now, some of us don’t come in to change the world by transmuting energy. Some of us come in to mirror the energy of others, like our families, or society. Why would a child come in, pick up almost no resistance (and therefore just be happy all the time and uplift everyone around them) and then die? Because picking up resistance and shifting it wasn’t part of this leg of their journey. They came with the express purpose of transitioning in a way that would mirror some really powerless beliefs to a larger number of people. It makes perfect sense to me that those who transition at a young age are often the brightest lights amongst us. Again, to fully grasp this point, you MUST get over the idea that death, in and of itself, is a bad thing.

Do NOT spend time thinking of your own kids’ deaths!

Nothing shakes us up more than seeing kids die. And that’s precisely why it happens. These kids didn’t attract a horrible death. They were going to transition no matter what and, from a non-physical point of view, chose to do so in a way that would push the most buttons and have the potential of waking a great many people up.

Having said that, it’s not necessary for any parents out there to think of their kids dying and somehow make peace with that idea. For the great majority of you, that bridge will never come, so don’t cross it if you don’t need to. A much larger number of people experienced the deaths of the Columbine and Connecticut students than were actually personally involved in those events. But for each person who heard about such “tragedies” and had a negative emotional reaction of any kind, the event was a mirror. In other words, we don’t all need to lose our own children in order to partake in such a manifestation and have the chance to release whatever particular resistance lies within us. The pain you feel when hearing of someone else’s child dying IS your manifestation. And as you find a way to feel better and succeed, you are shifting your energy (and in a way, the energy of the whole planet, making it easier and easier for everyone to feel better, and ultimately making it less and less necessary for us to manifest these kinds of events).

I’d also like to state that as hard as it may be to hear this, those who do directly experience their own child’s death are always equipped to do so. I don’t mean that they don’t experience massive pain. Of course they do. But they have the ability to overcome that pain. It may take them years to do so, but the ability is there. I’ve worked with enough people in grief to know that as they shift their perspective on death and therefore life, they discover levels of clarity, understanding, and yes, joy that they never knew were possible before. These are levels they could not have attained without the experience of death. There was no other manifestation that would’ve gotten them to let go of the beliefs they so desperately wanted to let go of.

The most awesome bottom line ever

Make peace with death. Make peace with the idea that people will die. Because it’s going to keep happening, both on an individual level and as part of mass co-creations. But don’t try to start with your own family. Start with the general idea of death and work your way inward to more specifics from there. You may never make peace with the idea that your own loved ones will die and that’s ok, too. You may never need to. Cross that bridge when you come to it. You don’t need to deal with hypothetical manifestations that haven’t yet happened. But it will serve you well if you can find a way to look at mass “tragedies” in a way that makes sense to you, doesn’t disempower you, and doesn’t bring you to your knees. In doing so, you are dealing with a current manifestation – the pain you felt when you observed those events. The people involved didn’t die because they deserved to. That idea is based on a complete misunderstanding of what death is. They died because their journey would be better served from the non-physical. And they died in a way that was designed to ultimately uplift the world.

You know, and I know that I’m going off on a bit of a tangent here, but my intuition says “Do it!”… It occurs to me that if Jesus really lived (and I think he did), then his death would’ve mirrored back the resistance of billions of people (over time), and continues to do so today. We’re taught that he died for our sins – and that we should feel forever guilty about it and indebted to him. That really never made sense to me. But given what we discovered together here today, it might be fair to say that he died in a way that ultimately gave us the opportunity to shift out of our “sins”, or our beliefs that contradict what Who We Really Are or God, if you will, thinks about us. Just as many individuals continue to do every day. How awesome is that?
 

Coaching Call #047 came out yesterday. The topic of this week’s call is: She Loves to Give to Others, But Has A Lot of Trouble Receiving.

Like most light workers, this caller had no problem giving until it hurt and beyond. But she couldn’t get comfortable with the idea of receiving, i.e. being paid or even having people to favors for her, unless she’d given them AT LEAST equal value or preferably, much, much more in return. This set of limiting beliefs stunted her earning potential and created a lot of resistance in her vibration.

It’s no coincidence that my business is called Deliberate Receiving. I don’t think I’ve ever explained the concept of giving and receiving, as they should be, more clearly. If tend to feel guilty when others give you to, if you have trouble asking for help, and/or if you don’t know how to ask for the prices or pay you think you deserve, this call is for you.

Read the full call summary here.

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Ok, so I spend a lot of time on Facebook and oter sites, looking at funny images. You know I love me some funny crap. LOL cats? Hell yes. Sarcasm? Bring it on. Puppies doing adorable things with speech bubbles that make them seem just a little bit dirty? Jackpot. And, while I really don’t want to rain on anybody’s parade, and fully acknowledge that “funny” is totally subjective, I’ve noticed a trend in the kinds of pics that people choose to post, and how they may not be serving them at all.

I’m the first to find humor in just about anything. Even if a joke is kind of mean, I’d rather laugh at it than condemn it. This is because I realized quite some time ago that whatever we push against, we get more of. So, when a joke focuses on something I don’t want, I might chuckle, but then I move on. I don’t share it, post it, like it or draw attention to it in any way. And I certainly don’t go looking for more of the same. I don’t want to perpetuate the energy of a subject that isn’t in line with what I want.

There are a lot of funny images and quotes out there. And laughter is generally good for the soul. But, are all jokes good for us? Is joyous laughter the same as bitter laughter? I’d like to make the case that no, it’s not. And each one has its place.

Respect the evolution

When we’re in pain and feeling powerless, angry or bitter jokes will help us feel better. But when we’re no longer feeling powerless, then more positively focused jokes will bring more relief. At this point, we may still find those negative jokes funny to an extent, but they will not represent a step UP from where we are. They can, in fact, keep us stuck in the old vibrations we’re trying to move out of.

Today, I’d like to focus on 7 different categories of jokes that may (if you are not in powerlessness) no longer be serving you. Keep in mind that laughing at a joke like this doesn’t necessarily keep you stuck (I chose the pictures I’ve posted here predominantly because I find them funny). But if your Facebook wall is littered with these kinds of images, if you are bombarding yourself with this kind of perspective, then you may want to shift your focus to what you actually want, and not what you’re now moving away from.

Disclaimer: This post isn’t aimed at the general population. For many of them, these jokes represent a step up, vibrationally. But for the audience of this blog, it’s quite probable that different parameters are starting to apply. If you want to keep evolving, you’ll have to keep watching your focus.

Category 1: Relationships suck!

There are a lot of messages out there celebrating how horrible marriage is. It seems to be a kind of accepted norm that life gets worse and worse after we get married. But does it?? I mean, if that’s actually true, then why the hell does anyone still do it? And if it’s not true, then why are we perpetuating this old view?

Marriage used to be much more about obligation and security than love. Women (and men!) were pressured into getting married, and once you were locked in, it was nearly impossible to get out. Even now, a lot of people stay together only because divorce feels “wrong”. Happiness wasn’t really much of a consideration. So, there were a lot of unhappy, horrible marriages. But that’s just no longer the case. Sure, there are still some miserable couples out there, but why focus on that paradigm?

Today, relationships are much more about love and happiness than they’ve ever been before. The divorce rate might bother some, but I see it as a good thing. It’s ok to get out if you’re not happy, and that means that people are placing happiness much higher up on their list of priorities. Couples are also much more likely to see therapy or counseling than ever before. They’re not willing to just put up with a lack of communication. They want to feel good about each other. They want to have great sex. They want to grow and evolve, both individually and as a couple. In short, people and therefore couples, are becoming more and more self-aware. And with that comes more authentic relationships, more joy, more happiness, more bliss.

If you’re constantly bitching about how horrible relationships are, you’re perpetuating the energy of what you don’t want.

Category 2: Men are children/Women are nags

I’ll let the Bullshit fairy do the talking for me on this one (Men, just substitute “Women” for “Men” and “Bitches” for “Douchebags”.

I think I’ve made my point.

Category 3: I’m so freaking poor!

Making jokes about being broke may make you temporarily feel a bit better, but keep in mind that when you talk about being broke, even if it’s funny, you’re still talking about and therefore perpetuating the energy of having no money.

Often, we use humor to try and pretend that we don’t really care about something (“Ha, ha, I’m so broke, but see? I’m joking about it, so obviously it doesn’t really bother me”). No one’s buying it. Of course you care! And by not being honest about that, you’re practicing a kind of denial. The only reason this kind of pretending feels better is if you think you have to give up on your dream. You don’t. You get to have all the money you want. But you can’t attract it while constantly harping on about how little money you have.

Category 4: I’m perpetually in a bad mood!

Ok, so a lot of these kinds of quotes are meant to convey that we are not afraid to set boundaries. “I won’t put up with your shit”, is really just another way of saying “I’m not a doormat.” And again, if you’re currently in a powerless place, if you tend to allow people to walk all over you, then these kinds of angry, defiant messages may well serve you.

If, however, you’re not currently being walked on, or at least not on a regular basis, then reacting as though you are, actually represents a step backwards.

To me, there’s not much joy in declaring I’m a bitch. I’m actually a really nice person. And I want to spend time with other really nice people. If you’re not nice, if you’re currently stuck in a dark place and need to lash out others, then I most likely won’t be spending any time with you. But, think about it; if someone is in such a dark place, and is already feeling awful about themselves, then how is being a bitch to them going to help??

Category 5: Other people are so stupid!

It’s easy to blame our bad mood and frustrations on other people. But once you know about the Law of Attraction, and the fact that everything in your reality is attracted to you by you, then you really can’t get away with that crap anymore. If your reality is full of stupid people, guess what? You’ve attracted stupid people for some reason. The most likely cause is that you keep focusing on how other people are total morons, and how you’re powerless against them.

Clean up your vibration and you’ll find that not only are other people not stupid, but that there’s a lot of brilliance out there. We came to this world with its billions of people for a reason. We’re not meant to live in isolation. Other people are there for us to play with, to help mirror back our vibrations to us, but also to help us co-create bigger experiences than we could on our own. Think about it: there are some experiences that you can’t have by yourself, or which are greatly enhanced by others. Watching a game alone, at home, vs. watching it in the stadium. Having a conversation alone, v.s. a lively debate between friends. Having solo sex, vs. having sex with your soul mate. You get the idea…

Category 6: My life is so stressful/difficult/awful!

This one’s insidious. If your life is hectic, it can be easy to consider this just a fact. Until very recently, I declared on a daily basis that “I’m so busy” (even here on this blog!), until it finally dawned on me that I wasn’t doing myself any favors with that one. Complaining about how busy I was perpetuated the busyness. So, I stopped and began to focus on ease. Within a very short amount of time, I found myself handling the same workload with much more grace. I had more time off. Things just seemed to flow more. And I felt a whole lot less busy.

Remember: WHATEVER you focus on is what you’ll get more of.

Category 7: The horrors of getting old

Yes, we all have to get older. It’s all part of this “time” thingy we’ve all agreed to abide by in this reality. But, we don’t have to get old. We don’t have to get sick. We don’t have to fall apart.

We don’t have to accept feeling bad as a natural part of the life cycle. If something doesn’t feel good, if there’s pain, then something is wrong. Unfortunately, even the medical establishment buys into this paradigm and will tell patients that many ailments are simply “normal” at a certain age. Well, I’d like to call bullshit. Feeling like crap is not normal at any age.

But if we want to thrive instead of just survive, we have to live deliberately, focus positively, expect to get better instead of worse, love ourselves, play more and be happy. Then, age is really just a number.

Did you enjoy this picture post? Were you inadvertently falling into any of the categories? Share in the comments!

Awesome Dude asks: “With confrontation, I was also wondering how to deal with the “passive-aggressive” type (ironically as I have a mild streak of this myself, I guess all people do). I am watching my own friend fall into the trap of a passive-aggressive/sneakier type of bully. This guy knows that my friend has some weight/self-esteem issues and instead of directly going up to him and saying “wow, what a lard ass!” he implies it or constantly pokes or pats him on the belly when walking past with a cocky little laugh.

The conversation will be pleasant enough, but he leaves with a little poke or pat on the “flabby” area.

Or people that are sarcastic, and you can’t really put a finger on it, but they insult you with nice words said in a really backhanded kind of way.

Or the more extreme passive-aggressive (I used to be this kind) that would have snuck into the kitchen and completely smashed the offending coffee cup, with an almost psychopathic, anonymous note left near the smashed up cup with some witty, zinger of a line about washing their stupid cup. Ok maybe not that bad, but yeah I used to be somewhat like that.

How do you deal with those people and what makes that belly-poker, sneak attack guy tick?”

Ah yes, the old passive aggressive sneak attack we all know so well. Who amongst us hasn’t had the pleasure (*cough *cough) of dealing with that person whose “nice comments” make Stalin look like Mother Theresa? One minute, we’re having a totally normal conversation and the next thing we know, we’ve been blindsided by a verbal baseball bat to the proverbial cojones. The PADO (Passive Aggressive Douchebaggy Offender), can come in many shapes and sizes. There’s the seemingly harmless little old lady with a tongue that could cut glass, the co-worker who’s totally professional when the boss is around but enjoys making people cry with her backhanded compliments, and the PTA mom who cannot help but subtly imply that you’re a horrible parent and your kids would be better off being raised by wild wolves than be subjected to your incompetent attempts at mothering. Although, she’s of course never going to come right out and say so.

Why PADOs usually render us powerless

There are two main problems with PADOs:

1. We’re often taken by surprise by their sudden meanness. Because of this sudden and drastic turn of events, we usually need a bit of time for the full impact of what they’ve just said to hit us.
2. They often seem so nice and/or the severity of their offense is totally out of proportion with what came before it. Their digs are often totally unprovoked. This leads to a kind of disbelief. Did they really just say that?? They couldn’t have possibly meant that!

These two factors lead to a delay in our response. Often, we don’t realize just how inappropriate their reaction was until hours later, when we recount the whole thing to someone else. In other words, we’re so stunned by the sheer audacity and venom coming out of a usually unlikely package, that we’re powerless to respond in the moment. This, of course, makes us feel all the worse.

But, even in hindsight, it’s often difficult to think of something we could’ve said that would’ve resolved the situation. Laughing it off doesn’t feel all that much better. And punching them in face isn’t generally an option. If we do nothing, we feel like a doormat. But if we react the way we’d like to and just bitch slap them into next year, our reaction will be seen as totally inappropriate. After all, they just innocently said something. And with a smile. Often the words themselves, taken out of context, aren’t even all that offensive. Really, do you even have a right to be so upset? The ambiguousness of the PADO’s comments often make us second guess ourselves. Are you sure you’re not just taking it the wrong way? Isn’t it really your responsibility to figure out why, exactly, you want to strangle this person every time you see them?

It’s about boundaries, people

Well, yes. Yes it is. But here’s the thing: You are not responsible for how other people act. You ARE responsible for your experience of them. In other words, it’s not your fault or your creation if someone is being a dick. But, the fact that you’ve gone ahead and attracted a dick into your reality, does contain some valuable information.

So, while it’s not your job to change anyone else so you can feel better (that doesn’t ever work anyway), you also don’t have to allow people to walk all over your boundaries. The reason you have such a negative reaction to a PADO, is that they’ve just stomped on one of your boundaries. But, they’ve done it in a way that’s making you question if you have the right to enforce that boundary. You’re not sure if you have permission to get mad. Also, you may not even know exactly which boundary they’ve stomped on. Often, after a PADO attack, when the victim is asked “Why did that bother you so much?”, they’re not really sure. Well, if you can’t even identify exactly why you’re so mad, do you have a right to be mad?

Yes. Yes you do.

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You ALWAYS have the right to feel how you feel. You just don’t have the right to force others to change so you can feel better. So, if you’re feeling mad, you have a right to be mad. The emotion is already there. Of course you freaking have a right to feel it. The idea that our emotional responses are somehow “wrong” unless we can justify them is utter and absolute bullshit. That’s right, people, the Bullshit Fairy has arrived and he’s not pulling any punches today.

The anatomy of a PADO

But how exactly are PADOs created? What makes them react the way they do? And why does anyone, even the nicest amongst us, sometimes take on some PADO characteristics? Let he who can claim not to have uttered some passive aggressive comment at least once in their lives be slapped by the Bullshit Fairy. Because he’s lying. We’ve all been there. But why?

Passive aggressive behavior is nothing more than a defensive mechanism. Not a good one mind you, but nonetheless, it’s all about protecting the self. Let me demonstrate via the example that Awesome Dude mentioned in his question: The PADO Bully pokes fun at his friend’s weight. I’m going to dub the pudgy friend Bob, just for simplicity’s sake.

So, there’s Bob, with a bit of extra cushion for the pushin’ around the middle. He’s minding his own business, talking to his friends when PADO Boy comes up. Now, PADO Boy clearly has some massive insecurities about his looks. He may well be someone who takes excessive care of himself (or not, this is not always the case), but inside, he feels as though he’s never good enough. Perhaps he used to be pudgy himself, or still is. No matter what his actual outside looks like, inside, he’s feeling like the ugliest one in the room. But, he DESPERATELY wants to feel like he’s ok. So, he seeks out any opportunity to make himself feel better. When he sees Bob, he instantly locks on to him as a target. His mind compares his own body to Bob’s and if Bob is fatter than PADO Boy, he’ll rejoice. It’s not so much about putting Bob down, as it is about lifting himself up. So, when PADO Boy pokes Bob’s fat or makes a comment about his weight, what he’s actually saying is “I’m not so bad, am I? I’m ok, right? I mean, I’m thinner than this guy! Please tell me that I’m ok.”

Of course, any characteristic that PADO Boy can identify with, will also trigger his insecurity and self-hatred at the very same time. This is where the venom comes from. That nastiness isn’t actually about Bob. It’s the hatred that PADO Boy has for himself that’s coming to the surface, directed at the characteristic in Bob that has triggered the reaction. If PADO Boy thinks of himself as fat or has a fear of becoming fat, he will mercilessly focus on Bob’s weight and take a shot at it any time he can.

By doing this, PADO Boy actually feels a very temporary sense of relief. He saw the fat, which triggered his own fear of becoming fat (this includes a sense of powerlessness, lack of control over the body, lack of acceptance by others, lack of love, and much, much more), which was incredibly painful. Comparing himself to Bob and coming out favorably makes him feel better. Declaring it publicly is an attempt to get others to agree with him (because if they laugh at Bob’s jiggly belly, they are by default saying: “You are not like Bob. You are much better than Bob).

Of course, passive aggressive behavior isn’t very effective. All it does is alienate others, and ultimately doesn’t get the PADO what he really wants, which is to feel better about himself.

If you know a PADO and have the opportunity to observe them, do so. If you watch carefully, you’ll be able to see that just before they make one of their rat-poison-dipped-in-sugar comments, they were triggered in some way. This can be anything really, like an offer for help (trigger: you’re not good enough to do it on your own), or someone saying something nice about someone else (trigger: they’re implying that this someone is better than you). Remember that beliefs and fears usually aren’t logical. This trigger may seem harmless to everyone BUT the PADO, so don’t expect it to make sense.

It all starts with you

So, now that we understand what’s actually happening when a PADO fires off one of their stealthy bitch bombs, we can turn our attention to the art of disarming them.

This, of course, is easier said than done. And as always, the work starts with us. I know, I know, you’re getting sick of me saying that, but if blaming everything on others worked, we’d all be super happy by now. So, suck it up cupcake and get ready to own your shit (and I say this with love, of course).

As I said, this all comes down to boundaries. And, you can’t enforce boundaries if you don’t even know where they are. A PADO can actually help you find them (even though it may, understandably, be a while before you’re willing to thank them for it). If a comment, any comment, has offended you, it’s only ever because it’s triggered something within you. Yep, it ultimately comes down to your own insecurities. If a passive aggressive comment about your weight makes you mad, you’re insecure about your own weight. That one’s pretty straight forward. But they’re not always that simple, are they? Some offenses require some digging. What is it that you’re truly upset about? What’s the insecurity that’s been mirrored back to you?

You’ll want to figure out what’s going on with you BEFORE you try to disarm the PADO. This is because it’s much harder to stay neutral and authentic when you’re in the middle of having a negative emotional reaction yourself. You can’t help someone deal with their trigger unless you’re in a higher vibration than they are. So yeah… it all starts with you.

But, let’s say that you’ve dealt with your trigger, or you’re watching a PADO go after your friend, so you’re not personally being upset by what’s being said. The key is to stay in a high vibration. This means you have to practice compassion and love, not usually the way we tend to look at PADOs. But, if you want to affect real change, that is precisely what you’ll need to do. Remember that your friend attracted the event with his own insecurity, and that ultimately, the whole experience only showed up so that he could release the negative thoughts he’s having about himself. So, it’s not about protecting him, as much as it is about shining a loving light into the dark, painful corners of the PADOs mind. It’s not about comeuppance. It’s about helping another human being find a way to truly feel better. If you can’t approach the PADO from this angle, just stay away from them as much as possible.

How to disarm a PADO

So, there’s Bob, being poked by PADO Boy. What can you do?

Technique # 1: Treat the PADO with respect and kindness. Since passive aggressive behavior stems from a severe lack of self-esteem, the answer is not to smack the PADO down, but rather to uplift them. I know, this seems like you’re rewarding good behavior by being nice to them, but trust me on this, it works. The only caveat is that you have to be genuine. If you spend some time finding things you can truthfully appreciate about the PADO when you’re nowhere near them, it’ll be a lot easier to do so when they’re not there.

Technique # 2: Ask them very nicely and kindly (like you really want to know) why they’re doing that. Then shut up and make them answer.  Don’t fall into the trap of giving PADO Boy a speech about what a horrible human being he is. He already thinks that, and you’ll just be confirming it. All you’ll get is more defensive behavior. The trick is to remember that they’re doing the best they can, just like everyone else, and look at them with the knowledge that they are not broken, and that they are good enough. If you ask PADO Boy why he’s poking Bob, and then shut up, he will have to come up with some explanation. He may still try to deflect with something like “Oh, he knows it’s all in fun”, but then you’ll have the opportunity to explain that it isn’t actually fun, and that he might not like it if someone treated him that way (DO NOT start pointing out the PADO’s faults, as in “How would you like it if I pointed out your receding hairline?”. This will not go well. You’ll just be feeding the monster and making it worse in the long run.)

Technique # 3: Ask “Why would you say that?” This is pretty much the same thing as the point above. You may need to ask some follow up questions, but remember, after each question, shut up and make them answer (or let them walk away. But don’t feed the monster!) For example, PADO Boy might say something like “Are those new jeans?”, when he damn well knows they aren’t. If you confront him directly, you’ll look like you’re overreacting. The PADO’s best defense is that his comments often come off ambiguous out of context. But, if you ask very nicely and kindly (like you really want to know) “Why did you ask him that?”, now he’ll have to come up with an answer. At this point, most PADOs will lie. This is not because they’re bad people, but simply because dealing with their own shit is too painful to contemplate (which is why they became PADOs in the first place!). Do not press them for the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. A little bit of insight will be enough to affect some change. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and you can’t force someone to give up all their defensive mechanisms in one go, especially if they have nothing to replace them with.

As I stated, passive aggressive behavior doesn’t work. PADOs are people who have no idea how to get what they want, and have become so frustrated and full of self-doubt (and often self-hatred) that the venom has to squirt out whenever an opportunity arises. These are people in pain, and with no resources to get out of it. It will serve you well to keep that in mind.

It’s not about teaching them a lesson or taking revenge

Back to the example: So PADO boy has been asked why he’d ask Bob about his jeans. Now, he will almost certainly deflect and say something like “I don’t know. I was just making conversation.” At his point, you’ll want to avoid (like the freaking plague!) taking it a step further, but pointing out that perhaps they made that comment so they could point out that the jeans aren’t very nice, and is that really the only way they know how to make themselves feel better… This is counterproductive, mean and condescending. Not to mention that all you’ll be doing is making them feel worse, which will feed the monster. Theirs and yours.

By asking the question, you’ve stopped PADO boy in his tracks. His misguided method of trying to feel better will now be too transparent to work. He was trying to set up a bit, but you’ve now made that impossible.

Helping a PADO

If you have a PADO in the family, have to deal with them regularly and would like to help bring them to the point where passive aggressive behavior is no longer an issue, then remember Technique #1 – it’s about building them up. If you can recognize that passive aggressive behavior is NEVER actually about you (or whomever they’ve targeted) and ALWAYS about them feeling better, then you’ll understand that finding ways to help the PADO focus more positively on themselves will be the best, long term solution. Show them how to get what they want. Talk about how you go about things. Give them support in their endeavor to feel better. What most people do with PADOs is to look at them as though they’re horrible, mean people. All this does is feed the monster. It just reinforces their beliefs. Plus, if you expect the worst from people, you will manifest it. If you expect the best from people, you’ll manifest, that, too. See their good qualities, even when they can’t. Point them out. Give them permission to feel the way they do. Talk to them. Help them find better alternatives. Help them figure out what it is they actually want and how to ask for it in a way that doesn’t diminish others.

And no, I don’t for a second think this will be easy. But I’ve done it on more than one occasion, so I know that it works. There are PADOs in my reality who are not even remotely passive aggressive in my presence. I get to see a completely different side of them because that’s what I elicit. I get to see the real them, the amazing qualities they have, which they often hide away from those who expect only the worst of them. They are often completely different people than others think they are. Amazing people. Funny people. Loving people. They just have horrible self-esteem. Uplift them a little and you may be shocked at what they’re capable of becoming.

Coaching Call #046 came out yesterday. The topic of this week’s call is: Why Do Men Keep Breaking Up With Her?

This caller had a pattern of horrible breakups. Men would fall in love with her and then very abruptly end things, usually without any kind of explanation. Although she knew, from having gone through therapy, that this pattern dated back to her childhood and her relationship with her father, that knowledge didn’t help her break that cycle.

During the call, we uncovered what was actually happening (why these men were suddenly running for the hills). We then discussed ways of shifting out of the energy that was causing that behavior so she can finally manifest the loving relationship she’s always wanted. This call is for all those women who’ve ever found themselves feeling a bit needy or even desperate (insecure, basically) around men, as well as any men who’ve ever had to deal with this behavior in women.

See the full call summary and purchase the call here.

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We all have it – the fear of rejection. From the moment we’re born, we’re trained by our parents to seek their approval. If we’ve done something cute, we get a big smile and a tickle. If we’ve done something annoying, we get a frown, a raised voice or even no attention at all. Since babies are generally always cute no matter what they do, we get a lot of positive feedback in the beginning. But, as we grow up, we tend to become more annoying to those around us, and so disapproval sets in. When we’re no longer guaranteed to get approval, we begin to seek it. We do our best to conform to expectations, behave in the “right” way and please others so they will approve of us. And if they don’t, we feel like there’s something wrong with us.

This is how most of us have grown up. And it’s how most people still live. The fear of rejection is one of the most limiting beliefs there is. It keeps people from stepping into their own power. It stops them from asking for a raise, asking someone to dance, and having tons of fun (one could look ridiculous, after all!) Today, I’m going to call bullshit on this fear and offer you a different perspective on what rejection really is. By the end of this post, you should be ready to take on the world. So, you know, just in case you’ve already got plans, consider yourself warned.

No one can reject you

That’s right, I said it. And yes, I’ll explain it. We live in an attraction based Universe (i.e. like attracts like, you cannot repel anything, you can only attract or not), and anything that’s in our reality is only there because we attracted it. If there’s anything missing in our world, it’s only ever because we haven’t attracted that thing by becoming a match to it.  This is true for all material things as well as all experiences.

We attract with our energy or our vibrations, which are a result of whatever frequencies we are focused upon. So, when you focus on awesomeness and fun, your world will mirror that back to you and be filled with loads of awesome, fun people, experiences and things. If your world is not filled with awesomeness and fun, it’s because you’re focused on something else. Often, what your world is mirroring back to you (your manifested, physical reality), is your only clue as to what’s going on with your vibration. You may not realize that you’re focusing on something you don’t want until it shows up in your reality. Of course, you do have the early warning system of your emotions, but if unwanted stuff has shown up in your reality, then you’ve missed the signals. Not to worry, though, it’s never too late to change your focus.

Now, if everything in your reality is only there because you’ve invited it in, then it stands to reason that any rejection you may experience has been attracted to you BY you. But why the hell would you do that?

The anatomy of rejection

Whenever you get rejected or disapproved of by someone and it feels bad, it means that you currently hold a belief about yourself that really, really isn’t serving you.  Let’s say that you want a raise, but you don’t truly believe that you’ll get one. Perhaps you don’t think you’re good enough, or don’t feel that others think you’re good enough (which means that a part of you doesn’t believe you’re good enough). You may have beliefs about how hard it is for you to get a raise (the economy is bad, your boss is an asshole, you haven’t been in the company long enough, your boss is an idiot, etc.) that can play a part as well, but if you experience real pain at the thought of your boss saying “No”, then you have a negative belief about yourself. Beliefs about the economy may not serve you, but they don’t lead to the same kind of suffering that personal rejection brings.

So, let’s say that a small but significant part of you is afraid that maybe, just maybe, you really aren’t good enough at what you do to warrant a raise. You don’t deserve it. And yet, there’s this other part of you that thinks “I’ve worked really hard. Logically, I know that I totally deserve a raise.” You want a raise, and most of you thinks you should get one, but that little part of you that’s contradicting what you want is creating a lot of conflict. And this causes pain. The mere thought of asking for this raise fills you with dread. You’d rather not ask at all than face the chance of your boss saying “no”.

So what if he says “no”?

Let’s dissect this fear for a moment. You ask for a raise and your boss says “no”. So freaking what? Why does the thought of this “rejection” hurt you so much? What exactly does this say about you to you? Generally speaking, if the rejection hurts, it’s validating the belief that you’re not worthy of that raise. This is an ugly, ugly thought.

But is your boss’ decision really about YOU? Sure, you attracted an experience that proved your belief right, so you manifested the feeling you just experienced, but it’s also worth looking at the other side – your boss’ perspective. Rejection takes two parties. One who does the rejecting and one who gets rejected. You’ve probably spent a whole lot of time looking at the ugly side of being the rejectee, and very little on dissecting your beliefs about what’s happening in the mind of the rejector (yes, I’m making up words now. It’s called poetic license. Shaddap.)

When you feel rejected, you’re invariably assuming that the other person has rejected YOU. Not your performance, not your abilities, not your skill set, not anything ABOUT you, but YOU, who you are, your character, your personality, what makes you, you. And that’s why it hurts so much. But is that actually what happened?

Does your boss know YOU?

Does he know Who You Really Are? Does he know the authentic YOU, the one who is pure love and passion and enthusiasm? Or, does he know only the side of you that you’ve been willing to show him, defensive mechanisms and all? Have you ever shown up to work as the real YOU, or have you been protecting yourself? Do you love your job or are you only there for the money and security, totally in denial about how horrible you feel? If this is how you’re showing up for work, then your boss doesn’t know YOU. And if your boss doesn’t know YOU, he cannot reject YOU.

Can your boss know YOU?

Of course, we have to consider that your boss has a vibration, as well. He can only allow whatever is a match to his vibration into his reality. That means that he sees only what his own, personal filters will allow him to see. Even if you’re being totally authentic, he cannot perceive the full glory that is YOU, unless he’s being fully authentic, as well (and if you’re at the point where you and everyone around you is fully authentic, then you really don’t need blog posts like this one anymore). Once again, if your boss doesn’t know YOU, he cannot reject YOU.

What people are really rejecting

If your boss is rejecting “you”, he’s really rejecting whatever he is perceiving. We’ve already established that he’s not perceiving YOU, since you’re probably not showing it to him and he wouldn’t be able to see it, even if you did. In other words, it’s like someone took a picture of your big toe, ran it through Photoshop and distorted it, and then showed it to your boss and said “You like this one?” If that happened and he rejected the pic, would you take it personally? Would you see that distorted, limited view as being a perfect representation of everything you are and are capable of? Or would you understand that your boss saw what he wanted to see, what he was capable of seeing, which had NOTHING to do with Who You Really Are, and made his decision off of that scanty and inaccurate and completely biased info? You’d have to be pretty damn insecure if you still took that crap personally.

Everyone does the best they can

I’d also like to add that everyone is ALWAYS doing the best they can, from their own perspective. Your boss doesn’t want to do a bad job. He’s not there to hurt you. He has his own problems, his own perceptions, his own perspective. He’s moving towards his own goals. And all of these variables will be different from yours. He does not have the same perspective that you do. He does not have the same beliefs and therefore perception that you do. He doesn’t have the same goals as you (other than the core goal that we all share, which is to be happy). But he does want to feel good, just like you do and whatever decisions he makes, whatever behavior he offers, will be in line with that, given all those other variables. He may not make the decision you want him to make, but I promise you, given all of those criteria, his decision had absolutely nothing to do with YOU.

But, Melody, I still didn’t get what I wanted!

So, we’ve established that the only reason rejection hurts so much is because you think YOU’re being rejected. We’ve also established that another person cannot ever really reject YOU, since they can’t ever fully know the real YOU, and that even if they did, the variables that go into their decisions are not the same as yours, and so their decisions will never really have anything to do with you.

But, you may be thinking, that’s all great and good, only you still didn’t get the freaking raise!

Well, Grasshopper, were you a match to the raise? Were you more focused on WHAT you wanted and on lining up with that, or were you more focused on WHO had to give it to you and why they might not? Be honest. Remember that your boss is simply a conduit (not THE conduit) through which money can flow to you. But the amount of money that flows to you is your manifestation, not his; and no one can manifest in your reality. Whether or not you manifest more money has absolutely NOTHING to do with your boss. If he’s not a match to making the decision that will bring more money to you, then the Law of Attraction will find another conduit, one willing to let the energy of money flow to you through them.

Stop making other people responsible for your manifestations.

• Your boss is not responsible for how much money you manifest
• Your parents aren’t responsible for how much emotional stability you have
• That cute guy you want to doink is not responsible for how much love you allow into your life
• No one is responsible for how you feel about yourself
• You’re still laughing at the word “doink”, aren’t you?

Bottom line

There is no such thing as rejection. There’s only you, the center of your own little Universe (NOT the center of anyone else’s Universe!), attracting whatever you’re a match to. Others aren’t responsible for providing you with your manifestations, and if they refuse to, it’s got absolutely nothing to do with you. You get what you’re a match to. You are a match to whatever you’re focused upon. If you’re not getting what you want, you’re not focused on what you want. Hating the person who refused to defy the laws of the Universe and give you something you’re not a match to, won’t change that.

So, stop focusing on the HOW or the WHO, and get focusing on the WHAT. Because you get to have what you want. You deserve it. You should have it. The whole Universe is set up on the premise that you get to have what you want. It wants to give it to you! Are you ready? Are you? This is going to be so damn awesome! Fear of rejection? What fear of rejection?! Go get ‘em Grasshopper! Rawr!

Awesome Kim asks: “Though I know logically that none of the things I am pretending to be afraid of will actually happen, I still feel this fear and powerlessness as I imagine these improbable events. And I wonder – is this some sort of backlash against my progress by my ego? Is my ego fighting back against these positive changes I’ve been creating?”

Dear Awesome Kim,

This is a question I get A LOT and one I’ve been itching to answer for quite some time. In the personal development world, there’s a lot of talk about the Ego. It’s usually described as the enemy, this evil little gremlin part of ourselves that likes to sabotage us. It’s the selfish part of us, the fearful part of us, the greedy part of us. Pretty much all the negative qualities we don’t like about ourselves get attributed to our ego. “I want to change”, we say, “but my stupid ego keeps getting in the way.” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to listen to people at spiritual retreats go on and on about the evils of the ego and how it’s basically our main purpose in life to either squash it, kick it out, transcend it or release it.

Well, Kim and everyone else, I’m going to tell you a little secret: There’s no gremlin. The Ego, in the form that many like to talk about it, doesn’t exist. In other words, I’m calling Bullshit.

There is no damn Ego

Now, I know that this is a controversial statement. After all, if there is no ego, then who or what can we blame for all the sabotage? What exactly is the cause of all our greed and selfishness and evildoing? Of course the term Ego is simply a way of describing a phenomenon or set of behaviors and reactions that do exist, but I find this explanation outdated, misleading and quite destructive in many ways. The way that most people define and look at the ego usually leaves them feeling powerless (my ego keeps sabotaging me!). It’s also a bit of a throwback to the good vs. evil paradigm (the ego is often seen as our more evil side). Ego can be used to describe our “human” attributes, versus our “soul” attributes, with our human side being the broken, sinful one and our soul being virtuous and clean. To put it another way, there’s a lot of judgment in the way that most people look at the concept of the ego. And that, boys and girls, just won’t fly here, because judgment ultimately doesn’t serve us.

I’d like to offer a different explanation:

What the Ego actually is

In the post Why Do Our Brains Accept False Beliefs As Truth?, I explained how our brains are really kind of stupid, willing to accept whatever input we give them (a bit like computers). If we make a decision, they will accept this as true, and will just assume that this decision serves us. These decisions then become our beliefs, and our brains will filter all the information they get bombarded with every day using these beliefs. If the decisions we made no longer serve us, we can change them, but until we do so, our miraculous head computers will simply follow whatever programming was installed.

This part of our brains (or our minds), is what people often refer to as the Ego (notice that I’m talking about how ego is talked about in personal development circles. In colloquial terms, ego usually refers to arrogance, which is nothing more than a defensive mechanism born of insecurity). The reason that I really don’t like the ego paradigm is because this explanation attributes negative intent to the ego, as if it’s purposefully trying to keep us from being happy. There is no such intent. There is no judgment. There is only input and output.

Our brains are designed to keep us alive. There are the parts that keep us breathing and our hearts pumping. Yep, that all gets regulated in the brain, and it’s very hard to mess with that basic part of the operating system. Sure, Yogis have proven that they can slow down and even stop their hearts with tons of concentration, but for most of us, it’s just kind of an automated function we never have to think about.

If you go up a layer, you get to what is often called the subconscious mind. This is where all those decisions we’ve made throughout our lives reside. They are also designed to run automatically, so we don’t have to make all those decisions over and over again. There’s a reason for this design – we’d have a very hard time functioning without it. Once you know how to drive a car, for example, you don’t have to think about it anymore. You drive automatically – your subconscious does a lot of the heavy lifting, leaving your conscious mind free to keep an eye out for danger as well as possible opportunities for awesomeness. Just about any thought process, action or response can be automated, often without our even having to consciously decide to do so. If you take the same route to work every day, this will become part of your morning routine. You can probably perform that routine, including shower, teeth brushing, makeup and breakfast in your sleep.

But the subconscious isn’t just there to help you drive a car or drink your OJ before you’re fully awake. This is the mechanism that takes the millions of bits of information that bombard you every day of your life, filters them according to the priorities you’ve installed (yes, you. And your parents. And society), and automatically reacts to the “important” triggers in whatever way you’ve decided it should.

If you have a belief of unworthiness, you decided at some point that you were not worthy. If you have a belief that all men are douchebags, then you made that decision, as well. Even if a belief was handed down to you by your parents or society, on some level, you decided to trust those around you enough to simply adopt their criteria and priorities as valid and true without questioning them first.

Like a dog with a stick

If your subconscious mind didn’t do this filtering and prioritizing, you’d go absolutely ape shit crazy. Your conscious mind cannot handle all the input and stimuli that your subconscious can. You’d be totally overwhelmed. If your brain didn’t have the ability to filter all the sights and sounds around you, for example, you’d suffer from sensory overload. People with brain injuries often have this problem – they can no longer filter and busy places with too much noise cause nausea and panic attacks. People having anxiety attacks often also lose the ability to filter to some degree. They become hyper aware of all sounds, sights and smells (a survival mechanism), making the whole experience so much worse. The point is, this filtering process is a really, really good thing and actually necessary to our survival and continued evolution. There is no way we could be as technologically advanced as we are without the ability to sort through vast amounts of information and quickly filter out only what’s important to us. Our minds can and do perform this function for us. In other words, if it wasn’t for the ego, you’d be a drooling, anxiety riddled mess.

Now, granted, some of the criteria and rules that have been programmed into your subconscious no longer serve you. But that that’s not your mind’s fault! It has no ability to judge the programming. It will blindly accept whatever you’ve told it to. There is no intent other than to serve you. Your mind assumes that if you’ve gone ahead and made a decision about yourself and the world at large, that you gave it some thought. It assumes that you know what you’re doing.

Your mind is trying to keep you alive and happy. It makes no judgment on HOW that has to happen. If you tell your mind that something is important, it believes you. If you tell your mind that something is bad or scary, it believes that, too. If you tell your mind to look for something and present it to you whenever possible, it does so. It’s a bit like a dog fetching a stick. It will happily bring you whatever it’s been trained to.

Our wondrous mind: Friend of Foe?

Now, let’s say that you have some beliefs that aren’t serving you anymore (and possibly never did). Your mind will not argue with you. It will faithfully continue to follow the directions it was given until you tell it otherwise.

If you then try to contradict that programming without changing the instructions, your mind will fight you. It’s not doing this to try and sabotage you, it’s trying to keep you alive and happy!

Let’s say that you want to get a promotion at work. You decided, at one point in your life, that you don’t deserve to succeed. So, your mind has been looking for evidence that supports this failure mentality and has been presenting it to you at every opportunity. Any evidence that didn’t match this belief was filtered out. Now, let’s say that you decide to work on a big, high profile project. Your boss gives you explicit instructions and includes one big caveat. If you mess up this important directive, you’ll surely fail. Well, since you’ve programmed your mind with the instruction that you MUST fail, it will make sure that you do. So, when your boss gives you the important instructions, your mind simply filters them out. You’ll later swear up and down that you didn’t hear him say it. Not only that, but your mind will filter out all kinds of other bits of info that could’ve made success an absolute certainty. It might even cause you to oversleep on the day of the big presentation. The problem here is not your mind or ego, but the programming that was installed, which told the mind that failure was the preferred and expected outcome.

Or, let’s say that you get into an argument with your partner. You immediately go into defensive mode and bring up every little thing he’s ever done wrong. This is behavior that’s often attributed to the evil ego. But if we look deeper, we’ll find some programming, some decisions that were made long ago. There’s an insecurity in there. So when your boyfriend accuses you of overreacting, what you hear is “You’re not ok. You’re broken in some way.” And so you defend yourself even more vehemently.

At some point in your life, you made the decision that you are broken in some way. Only, Who You Really Are knows better and disagrees. So, the BASE programming (WYRA is the base programming. Read this post to find out more) is saying: “You are whole”, and your mind is saying “No you’re not”, which creates massive conflict (like two conflicting computer programs causing all kinds of errors). Whenever your mind decides that something or someone has so much as inferred that you’re not ok (and it will look for any evidence that triggers this conflict, because it must look for evidence that proves your belief to be true), it will defend its position. You’ll basically begin to defend yourself against your own belief, while ensuring that the false belief stays true. Sound ridiculous? Well it is. And it happens all the time. Let me give you an example.

Jenny believes that she’s not worthy of love. Sam, her hubby, loves her dearly. One day, he forgets to take out the trash, causing Jenny to lose her shit. Her mind has locked on to the “evidence” that supports that he doesn’t love her. He has forgotten to do something that she has requested he do. The “I’m not worthy” program running in Jenny’s brain kicks into action and screams “See? This proves that he doesn’t love me!”, while Who Jenny Really Is jumps up and proclaims “bullshit!”. Jenny wants to be loved, but won’t allow herself to be. So, while the part of her that wants love and knows it’s possible is  asking Sam to prove his love, her mind will always look for any evidence that he does not, no matter how small or ridiculous it seems. Essentially, she’s demanding that Sam prove that he loves her, but will never allow him to actually succeed.

One could say that Jenny’s ego is sabotaging her, but really, it’s just her faithful mind holding onto and carrying out a set of beliefs that aren’t serving her. And these beliefs can be changed.

Now, the good news is that if you install new beliefs, ones that serve you, ones that agree with and support what you want and Who You Really Are, your mind will filter for those, instead. Instead of your “ego” being your worst enemy, it’ll become your best friend. Instead of looking for signs of failure, your mind will show you gobs of evidence of success. Instead of sabotaging you, your mind will support you. Success will become effortless, with your subconscious doing all the heavy lifting, just like when you’re driving a car.

Bottom line

Think of your ego like a loyal servant or even a dog. Don’t blame the employee for your failure to provide clear instructions and don’t blame the dog for your failure to train it properly. If you tell your dog to fetch and it’s been trained to fetch a stick, but you really wanted a beer, you don’t get to chastise the dog for bringing a stick. The beauty of this metaphor is that you can retrain your dog to fetch you a beer when you give the command. You can give your servant better instructions. And you can reprogram your ego to help you get what you want instead of getting in your way. So let’s stop banging on about how horrible our egos are, shall we? You are not powerless against your ego, you’re the master of it, whether you know it or not. So, the only question that remains is: Are you a good master or are you being a douchebag boss who likes to blame his own mistakes on his underlings? Go on, be honest. Your ego won’t judge…

Coaching Call #045 came out yesterday. The topic of this call is: His Horrible Past Has Ruined His Life.

I absolutely adore this call. This client was so despondent when he applied for a call, I had to make sure he actually believed in the Law of Attraction before agreeing to get on the phone with him. His entire life had been one horrible incident after another, and he felt that he couldn’t surpass the patterns of his past. His deep sense of powerlessness and a recent divorce had led him to question if trying once again to feel better wasn’t just a waste of time.

Well, I’m happy to say that by the end of this call, this adorable man had reconnected with his inner happy shiny puppy. It was an incredible turn around. We covered a lot of ground, including setting boundaries without being aggressive, letting go of the burdens of the past, learning to honor ourselves when we don’t feel worthy of doing so, and how to love others without being a doormat. I dare you not to love this call!

See the call summary here.

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Awesome Pam wants to know: “So I have been using the affirmation ‘John loves me’ and I know everyone says you can’t make someone fall in love with you, but I guarantee since I started doing it he has fallen in love with me. I can tell by the way he acts and I am a 100% positive he loves me. Can you please explain to me how this happened? I guarantee he loves me and I am not making this up.

I mentioned to some friends about how you can use the LOA to make a specific person fall in love with you and they didn’t believe me. I told them I did it and it’s working, and they started telling me that if I’m using the LOA on him, he doesn’t truly love me, and they said his love is ‘forced’ and ‘fake’ and ‘artificial’ and he doesn’t truly love me like normal couples love each other because the process wasn’t natural.”

Dear Awesome Pam,

Your friends are wrong. And so are you. Kind of. He does love you and his love is real. But you didn’t make him love you. Let me explain:

LOA is not mind control

First rule of LOA (ok, maybe not the first rule, but it’s in the top 5): You cannot manifest in anyone else’s reality. You cannot be responsible for how someone else feels, what they experience, for whether or not they are happy, unhappy, kind, douche-y, or in love. You have no power to control other people’s thoughts, behaviors, moods, or feelings. You cannot create emotions in others, real, fake or otherwise. All of your power lies within yourself. And that’s enough. You don’t need to be able to take away anyone else’s free will in order to have whatever experience you want.

You can’t control anyone else, but you can influence them. So, if you’re in a great mood, someone in a bad mood may come along, see your happiness and be uplifted by it. They aren’t feeling good, but they WANT TO, and your happiness makes it easier for them to reach their own. You cannot make them happy, but they may well become happy in your presence, inspired by your positivity. Or, they might run for the hills, unable to reach joy because they’re too stuck and focused on what’s wrong in their lives, and annoyed by your chirpy demeanor. In other words, if you’re offering something they want (happiness, in this case), and they’re ready to be influenced to what they want, you being in that state can inspire them to attain it themselves. They’ll come and join you. If you’re not offering something they want, or if they’re not ready to get there, there is nothing you can do. It is always up to them. You can only ever control your own vibration.

So, the three criteria that MUST be present in order for two people to get together in an awesome way are:

1. Person A has to be a match to what they want
2. Person B has to be a match to what they want
3. What Person A wants and what person B wants have to match up

If these three criteria are not met, two people can certainly still get together. But they will not have that epic relationship. They’ll be a match to what they don’t want. The following scenarios will make that clear:

How people get together

You didn’t make this man love you. He was ready to love you and you allowed it by becoming a match to that love yourself. This is totally different from making someone fall in love with you.

Let’s say there’s a girl named Jenny and a boy named Shane. Jenny adores Shane, but Shane doesn’t seem to know that Jenny exists.

Jenny lines herself up with love

So, Jenny decides to use LOA to visualize Shane falling in love with her. As she visualizes this, she cleans up her own vibration. Remember that visualization is simply a tool to help you fine tune your own focus. If your visualizations don’t feel really good, that’s a sign that you’re holding on to a perspective, a belief that contradicts what you want. If, for example, Jenny thinks Shane is hot, but that he’s too hot to really go for her (that she’s not attractive enough for him), then visualizing Shane swooning all over her is going to feel weird, artificial and fake. If Jenny continues to visualize, however, she can work her way into the feeling that Shane could, indeed, fall for her, until fantasizing about this scenario feels natural and realistic. By doing this, Jenny will be getting rid of her own limiting belief. She’ll have changed HER belief from “I don’t think he could realistically be attracted to me” to “I can totally see him wanting me.”

As Jenny becomes more and more of a match to the feeling that being with Shane represents to her, she opens herself up to this scenario actually manifesting in real life.

Shane is a match to loving Jenny

Now, let’s say that Shane is already a match to loving Jenny. He’s a match to everything she wants. He has the ability to provide her with the experience she’s seeking and which she is not aligned with. And he’s a match to what he wants – he has no beliefs that contradict the experience that falling in love with Jenny will bring. If this is the case, then Shane will recognize Jenny as his love the second that Jenny becomes a match to the experience they both want. He was already there, and by lining up her energy, Jenny joined him and blammo! Freaking epic love story, y’all.

Shane is a match, but Jenny is not

If, however, Jenny is unsuccessful in her attempts to line up with what she wants, if she has too much resistance (beliefs that contradict what she wants), then she can focus on Shane all she wants, but he will not respond. Why not? Because he will not recognize the energetic match (you can’t recognize what isn’t there). Shane will be in Paris (city of love), while Jenny will be in Detroit, screaming his name and wondering why he can’t see her.

Jenny is a match but Shane is not

But, what if Jenny does manage to release her resistance and lines up with the experience of what she wants, but Shane is nowhere near being a match to that? In that case, I’d advise Jenny to let go of the idea that it has to be Shane (since he’s not ready for her and may never be) and allow LOA to bring her the man who is a total match and will be able to provide her the experience she’s been wanting. You cannot force someone to be a match to you. You can only ever allow those who are a match to you to come into your reality. In this case, Shane might’ve been close to what Jenny wants, but not the real deal. She would’ve only been so attracted to him because he also matched part of her resistance (see below). When she lets go of the need to control WHO will match what she wants (the conduit through which her manifestation will flow), she can receive it. And the yearning for Shane will cease.

Remember: The manifestation you really want is the experience of love, not the person from which it comes. Don’t confuse the gift with the gift bearer. [Tweet this]

Jenny is not a match to what she wants and neither is Shane

Now, let’s say that Jenny still has some resistance – a belief that men will eventually turn into douchebags, for example. And let’s say that Shane also has some resistance – a belief that women are crazy bitches, let’s say. This could make the two a match to each other, but not in a good way. Jenny’s insecurity would perfectly mirror back Shane’s belief: she would test him to see if there’s a douche in there, with a clear expectation that there was. These little games would then prove to Shane that Jenny was indeed already starting to go down the crazy bitch road, causing him to become more distant and standoffish. Afraid to be losing his boundaries, he might even turn into a full blown douchebag in an attempt to defend himself, causing Jenny to proclaim that her belief was right all along.

In this case, neither Jenny nor Shane was a match to what they wanted. But they were a match to each other – they were each in the position to perfectly mirror back the other’s beliefs. This is precisely how people who seem so bad for each other often get together. Why would you be attracted to someone who doesn’t match what you want? Well, if you also weren’t a match to what you wanted, you’d be attracted to those who could mirror back where you actually were. Do you now see that your only work is to become a match to what YOU want?

Can his love be fake?

I’d like to address the idea of fake love. Can love be faked? Well, of course it can. There are those who pretend to love others because they think that’s what they have to do in order to get what they want. There are those who think they love someone and lie to themselves (and therefore their partner) about it. Perhaps they think they should love the other person, or they’ve never experienced real love and think that the feeling of neediness or security is love. But trying to figure out if someone’s love is real is totally unnecessary. You have no control over whether or not they love you. But you do have control over what experience you line up with.

If you focus on being in unconditional love, meaning you love freely and openly and don’t make how you feel dependent on whether or not they love you back, you will not be a match to fake love. If you are authentic, you will not be a match to anything but authenticity. You invite into your reality whatever you are emanating vibrationally. If you are afraid of being dumped, you will attract someone who will prove you right. If you are afraid of being treated badly, the Universe MUST mirror this back to you. If you are emanating pure, unconditional, yummy love then the Universe MUST mirror that back to you, too. Now, THAT’S control!

Bottom line

If you’re in love with each other, you matched up with each other. Yay! Don’t second guess it. That’ll just invite more manifestations (like the conversations you had with your friends) that mirror those doubts back to you. Stop pooping all over your own joy! Enjoy it and stop making what other people think so relevant. Does it feel good to you? Let that be enough. If something feels off, address it. Otherwise, quit waiting for the other shoe to drop. Or, you know, it will.

Now it’s your turn: Can you apply what you’ve learned here to your past and current relationships? Can you see how you attracted and matched up the other person, even if they weren’t what you wanted? Share in the comments!