It’s
a Matter of Choice
8/25/7
Have you ever pondered upon
what an incredible gift the freedom of choice is? And how powerfully it affects our lives and
our future? Just think about all the
opportunities we have each and every day to take advantage of the gift of
freedom of choice.
For example, our choices begin
each morning as we are faced with a decision:
Do we jump out of bed bright and early with a smile on our face and a
spring in our step anxious to tackle the challenges of the day? Or do we lie in bed listening to the minutes
tick away on the alarm clock dreading the prospects of facing another day with
all of its problems until the final alarm summons us to action?
As we arise to the occasion, we
are faced with more choices: Do we
prepare ourselves for the day with morning meditation, prayer, exercise and a
nutritious breakfast? Or do we wash down
a jelly donut with a cup of coffee in order to rush to work in a frenzied
hurry?
As we approach the challenges
of the day, do we confront issues affirmatively, knowing that we have the
available resources to resolve them? Or
do we allow issues to overwhelm us to the point where we are incapacitated to
find solutions for them?
Right now, at this very moment,
you are faced with a choice: Do you
continue to read more of this “Good Newsletter” to discover what it is leading
to? Or do you delete it and go onto the
next e-mail? It’s your choice—so make
it!
The fact of the matter is—we
are today the products of the choices we make daily. Whether we succeed or fail as individuals, as
a nation, or as a planet depends upon the choices we made, are now making, or
will make in the future. We are
responsible (able to respond) to the choices that we make which have made us
who we are today. “We reap what we sow”
so to speak and what we’ve created for ourselves, our nation and our planet are
the results of our individual and collective choices. Now that’s powerful stuff!
If you’ve ever seen the movies What the Bleep or The Secret, then you are familiar with the concept of the law of
attraction/creation and the science behind it.
According to Quantum physics, there are infinite amounts of parallel
universes available at any given moment in time. It is at the precise moment that we make a
“choice” about something, that the universe begins to create the outcome or
“consequences” of that choice—whether good or bad. The atomic energies or “matter” for that
choice begins to align itself or “materialize.”
So you might say, “It is a matter of choice.” Some religions refer to it as the law of
“Karma” or the “Butterfly Effect.”
(Great movies, by the way, Butterfly Effect 1 and 2) In essence the butterfly effect suggests that
“tiny changes in initial conditions can lead to big changes in a later
outcome…The single sentence suggests, “if a butterfly flaps its wings in Tokyo
today, a month later it may cause a hurricane in Brazil.” (From Gregg Braden’s book The Isaiah Effect)
So the question is—how do we
make the best choices for the best possible outcomes? Now there’s a challenging question and
there’s probably been thousands of books written on just that subject. But this weekend I really had a huge epiphany
about how to make better choices in my life to create better outcomes.
I had picked up a book at
Barnes and Noble called The Law of
Attraction by Michael J. Losier after I’d read the Hicks’ version of The Law of Attraction months
earlier. As I began reading it, I was
impressed that it was a simplified formula of applying the law of attraction in
your daily life. My epiphany happened
after I read a section about Contrast
.
The first step in making the Law of
Attraction work for you is to be clear about what you want. The challenge, however, is that most people
are not good at knowing what they DO want but they are good at identifying what
they DON’T want. Knowing what you don’t
want is actually good news….
Contrast, as it applies to the Law of
Attraction, is anything you don’t like, doesn’t feel good, or causes you to be
in a negative mood. The moment you identify
something in your life that feels like contrast and you spend time complaining
about it, talking about it, or declaring that you don’t want it, you are
offering a negative vibration. The Law
of Attraction then responds to your negative vibration by giving you more of
the same.
By observing contrast and identifying it as
something you don’t want, you become
clearer about what you do want. Simply ask yourself “So, what don’t I
want?” In other words, you can use the
contrast to gain clarity about what you do
want by answering that question…
The key to getting what you want without
getting stuck focusing on what you don’t want is to briefly observe contrast.
Only you can decide how long briefly is. For some, experiencing contrast in a
relationship may last for years; for others, contrast is observed for a short
time. You might end a relationship on
the first date.
Notice that when you experience contrast
around smells, sounds, or tastes, your tolerance is minimal. In these cases, you are observing contrast
briefly and changing it to clarity, FAST…
Generally, the least amount of time you
spend putting your attention, energy and focus toward contrast, the better.
After reading this section on
Contrast, the next day I got a chance to apply it. As many of you know Brad and I made the
“choice” to spend Labor Day Weekend with some friends up at our friend, Gary’s
cabin. There were some real highlights
to the weekend like Brad and I taking off by ourselves to find a quiet beach to
relax and swim in the cool, clear Bear Lake waters and get some much needed
R&R. The rest of our friends went
golfing and ended up in a rainstorm. I
felt we made a better “choice” for ourselves although they said they had a
great time. That evening a few of us
went for a walk and connected deeply while we observed a glorious rainbow
framing an equally glorious sunset. It
was definitely the climax of the entire day.
The next day Gary suggested
taking Brad, me and whoever else wanted to go out on the Wave Runners. I’d never been on a Wave Runner before and so
I was really excited about going. But as
the morning dragged on I noticed that the rest of my friends (including Brad)
did not share in my enthusiasm, but were more for quietly relaxing in the
cabin. Again it’s about choice here,
and my choice that Labor Day was to have
some fun. I’d already relaxed the entire previous Sunday
on the beach.
It was then I made a choice—the
choice to leave and spend the rest of the day in Logan with my kids and
grandkids who really knew how to have
some fun! When I mentioned to Brad
my desires, he seemed to go along with my choice—until I quickly started
packing things up and moving in the direction of “our choice.”
Then he suddenly went into resistance, which I totally don’t “get” about
Brad. Usually his resistance turns into
argument which has been a familiar negative pattern in our relationship. But this time I made a different “choice.” Instead of going right into argument, I
stopped. I said to Brad, “Okay, hun, I
don’t want to take away your choices. If
you’d like to stay here with our friends, then let’s find you a ride home…so I
can still have my choice to go to Logan and be with my family.”
As Brad realized his choices
weren’t being taken away, but rather acknowledged, then he relaxed the argument
to make a “free-will” choice to either stay or go. He asked to see if any of
our friends wanted to go Wave-running or if they just wanted to sit around and
relax. They were clear that their choices
were to sit around the cabin and relax and Gary wasn’t especially motivated to
take the Wave Runners out just for Brad and me.
So then Brad made the choice to leave with me and go to Logan without
resistance.
And, oh my God, what an
incredible time we had in Logan! I had
one of the most exhilarating experiences of “walking through one of my greatest
fears” I’ve ever had. And it was Carly,
my little six-year-old granddaughter, who was again my teacher.
We ended up at a small
amusement park called, Celebration. My
older boys, Jordan and Jonathan, and my grandson Sean wanted to go on the Big
Shot that shoots you way up into the air at 90 miles an hour. Carly, on the other hand, wanted Grandma to
take her on the Sky Coaster as she had just barely qualified in terms of
height.
Now I’ve always been an
amusement park addict since I was a kid and there were practically no rides
that ever intimidated me—except for the big sky swing at Lagoon that dropped
you out of the sky from 200 feet in the air just wearing a harness. I figured I’d never pay the $20 extra to ride
on that ride and so I was safe never
having to face my fears…NOT!
I bought the $10 tickets for
the Sky Coaster figuring if they’d let a six-year-old ride, it must be pretty
tame. I looked around for what I thought
would be a glorified roller coaster, but when Carly pulled me towards the GIANT
SKY SWING—I nearly panicked.
“Carly! Are you sure
you want to go on this
ride?” I inquired desperately. “Look how high they take you and drop you
into the air with nothing to hang onto?”
“Oh, yes, Grandma, yes! Doesn’t it look like fun? It’s just like flying!” she replied
undaunted.
I shook my head in
disbelief. “Okay, Grandma promised she
would take you and so she will.” I then
convinced my 18-year-old son, Jordan, to come with us for some moral support;
and also the fact that they needed an extra adult to pull the brake at the end
of the ride. Brad was cowering on the
sidelines with four-year-old Jaxen on his sleeve as his excuse not to join us.
And so all three of us got
strapped into our harnesses and pulleyed up 200 feet face-down into
mid-air. Jordan was the designated
rip-cord operator (as frankly I would have frozen in fear) and as he pulled the
rip-cord on the count of 3-2-1, the three of us free-fell 200 feet into the air
to soar across the amusement park like Spiderman. IT WAS EXHILARATING!!! I thought Carly would pee her pants for sure
as she hung tightly to my arm with her eyes shut tightly screaming, “Save me,
Grandma…save me…” We were both screaming out our sheer terror mixed with
laughter the entire time until Jordan and I grabbed the ring to brake us.
“WE DID IT!!” I laughed whole-heartily as the ride came to
an end. “I can’t believe I actually
conquered my fear of heights!”
Brad was proud of me for
allowing my six-year-old granddaughter to teach me another of life’s
lessons—this one about fear. The acronym
for FEAR can be one of two things depending on what we “choose” to do with
it. It can mean: False Evidence
Appearing Real; or it can mean: Fuck Everything And Run. I’m glad I chose to face my fear and move
through it and have the indescribable exhilaration (which lasted the entire
day) after I arrived on the other side of it.
Thanks, Carly, again for showing me the way through the heart of a
child.
As each of us makes the tough
choices in life, consider that there are only two emotions (energies in motion)
that help us determine our choices—Fear and Love. Fear brings on the energy of contraction,
while love brings on the energy of expansion.
When we make our choices based on fear we create a fear-based
world. The world can only reflect back
that which is already inside of us. When
we make our choices based on love we create a love-based world. No exceptions!
As I just finished Gregg
Braden’s book, The Isaiah Effect, I’d
like to share a few more things from it.
The first is concerning the power of prayer.
For centuries, prophets and sages have
suggested that one-tenth of one percent of humanity, working together in a
unified effort, may shift the consciousness of the entire world. If these numbers are accurate, then a
surprisingly few individuals may plant the seed of great possibilities. At present the population of our world is
estimated to be approximately 6 billion people.
One percent of our global neighborhood, then, is represented by 60
million, with one-tenth of that number approaching 6 million people…
Although these statistics may represent an
optimum number to bring about change, the studies in Jerusalem and the other
large population centers suggest that the numbers to initiate such change may
be even smaller! The studies indicate
that the first effects of the mass meditation/prayer became noticeable when the
number of people participating in the prayer was greater than the square root of one percent of the population. In a city of one million people, for example,
this value represents only one hundred individuals!
…Representing only a fraction of even the
ancient estimates, the square root of one percent of earth’s population is just under eight thousand people!
In one
of my previous Higher Ground “Good Newsletters,” I came across a precious
little fable I sent out for Christmas one year which helps illustrate this
point.
A Tale
for All Seasons
“Tell me the weight of a snowflake,” a bluebird
asked a wild dove one wintry day.
“Nothing more than nothing,” was the answer.
“In that case, I must tell you a marvelous
story,” the bluebird said.
“I sat on the branch of a fir, close to its
trunk, when it began to snow—not heavily, not in a raging blizzard—no, just
like in a dream, without a wound and without any violence. Since I did not have anything better to do, I
counted the snowflakes settling on the twigs and needles of my branch. Their number was exactly 3,741,952. When the 3,741,953rd dropped onto
the branch, nothing more than nothing, as you say—the branch broke off.”
Having said that, the bluebird flew away.
The dove, since Noah’s time an authority on the
matter, thought about the story for awhile, and finally said to herself, “Perhaps there is only one person’s voice
lacking for peace to come to the world.”
Here’s
an enlightening passage about peace from the Essene Gospel of Peace, Book Four by Edmond Bordeaux Szekely:
First shall the Son of
Man seek peace within his own body: for his body is as a mountain pond that
reflects the sun when it is still and clear.
When it is full of mud and stones it reflects nothing.
Then shall the Son of
Man seek peace within his own thoughts…There is no greater power in heaven and
earth than the thought of the Son of Man.
Though unseen by the eyes of the body, yet each thought has mighty
strength even such strength can shake the heavens.
Then shall the Son of
Man seek peace with his own feelings. We
call on the Angel of love to enter our feelings, that they may be
purified. And all that was before
impatience and discord will turn into harmony and peace.
As
a final sentiment to this Heartsong “Good Newsletter,” I would like to share
the song by, none other than, John Denver, which inspired the name for our
place up in Montana. I hope it will
inspire you to “reach for Higher Ground.”
Higher
Ground
There are
those who can live
With
the things they don't believe in.
They
are giving up their lives
For
something that is less than they can be.
Some
have longed for a home
In a
place of inspiration.
They
will fill the emptiness inside
By
giving it all to the things that they believe…
They
believe...
Maybe it's just the dream in me.
Maybe
it's just my style.
Maybe
it's just the freedom that I've found.
But
given the possibility
Of
living up to the dream in me,
You know that I'll be reaching for
Higher
Ground
Keep me
through the night
Lead me
to the light
Teach
me the magic of wonder
Give me
the spirit to fly…
Spirit
to fly…
Maybe
it’s just the dream in me
Maybe
it’s just my style
Maybe
it’s just the freedom that I’ve found
But
given the possibility
Of
living up to the dream in me
You
know that I’ll be reaching for
Higher
Ground
Peace and love be with you always as you continue to
reach for “Higher Ground.”
Jesse Christian aka Janae Thorne-Bird
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