Do You Have a Dirty Mind?

“My kids are fighting like crazy these days,” my client recounts to me. “It’s driving me crazy! I’m not sure if intervening is the right thing to do, or if I should just let them figure it out.”

I could completely sympathize with her. While my own daughter doesn’t have a sibling to argue with, she and I do ruffle each others feathers every now and then, and I, much like my client, wonder if I am handling these interactions with her in the best way.

She is at the age where, well, let’s just say physical cleanliness is definitely more important to me than it is to her, and I find myself wondering whether my constant, persistent, commands to “bush hair please”, or “hair and teeth, please”, or “did you floss?” are really the right approach.

“Should we just let our kids go dirty, and not pressure them to brush their teeth,” my client wondered?

How should I handle this?

I used this example because it provides both a literal and figurative look at how our “dirty minds” work. Just as not cleansing our bodies will leave them dirty, not cleansing our mind will do the same. If you are constantly thinking negative thoughts, negativity is what you will receive. I call this the dirty mind syndrome.

The definition of the Law of Attraction states that whatever you give you attention, energy and focus to, you’ll get more of it, whether positive or negative. Positive thoughts or feeling (vibrations) attract more positive experiences, negative thoughts or feelings… well you know where that leads. And, you can always tell whether or not you are offering a positive vibe or a negative vibe, by the way you feel. Positive vibes always feel good, or at least provide some relief when you are offering them, which is the indicator that you are on the right track to attract whatever it is you really want.

Your emotions are like your own personal GPS system, telling you whether your current feeling (or current vibration) is positive or negative.

So, with this in mind, I asked my client, “Do you feel good when you have to repeatedly ask your children to do something?”

Her reply was an instant, “No.” I agreed with her because, I don’t feel good about it either.

I concluded, in these particular interactions with my daughter, that my negative emotions are my indicator that I was offering a negative vibe and the chances are less likely that this situation was going to go the way I wanted it to.

So, what do I want? How do I want this situation to turn out?

Well, I’d like my daughter to take more responsibility for her behaviour. I’d like her to be motivated to take action without me having to remind her.

By simply thinking these thoughts, I’ve raised my own vibration. This is a great first start and, I’ve decided I’m only going to ask her once (in a loving way). Then, I am going to back off!

I know what you’re thinking – “She’s crazy! The kid will never do it!” But, by doing this, I feel better and my daughter has to feel better. I’ve increased the likelihood of turning this situation around through my positive (clean) thoughts.

And, guess what? I have noticed an improvement! It’s not just in her cleanliness either. It has affected her actions in other areas as well. She now comes home from school, opens up her backpack, and is inspired to get her work completed – without me saying a word!!

Parenting, like so many topics, is fraught with ambiguity. Am I too strict or too slack? Do I praise my daughter too much or too little? Is she too young to watch that show with me? Too young to listen to that song? Is she already a video game addict? Will she grow up to be a good person? What is a good person?

So many questions! And, while I may not have the answer to all of them, here is what I do know. My daughter will not be cold; she will not go hungry; her hair will be tidy (somewhat); she will not smell (much); her face will be clean(ish), and I will do my best to treat her in ways that, at the end of the day, I feel ok with. And, most importantly for me – I will have a clean mind!

Are you unsure of what to do? Undecided about something? Get yourself into alignment vibrationally first (clean your mind!) then, take action.

Using the Law of Attraction is not about the conditions changing (my daughter behaving better) and then finding a better feeling in response to the changed condition. Deliberately creating your own life using the Law of Attraction is about choosing a thought that feels good when you choose it, which then causes the condition to change.

So, here’s the big question – Do you have a “dirty mind”? If so, don’t be ashamed. We’ve all been there. I encourage to share an experience where your feelings are telling you that your actions could be more negative than positive, and therefore not aligned with what you actually want - and how you can turn that around!

Blog Post Photo Courtesy of Gardner Photography - www.gardner-photo.com/

Finding the Positive in the Negative

6:00 am Saturday morning. It’s still dark, very quiet too. Everyone is still asleep and the house is still.

I grab a banana and a travel mug of green tea. No coffee for me this morning. No pancake breakfast. No wine last night. I down a glass of water and head off to get dressed. I pull on my ski clothing (which cost me a fortune, I might add – not to mention the equipment) and I mentally prepare myself for the next few hours of mental torture as I get us to the ski hill for my daughters racing program.

First, I have to wake my daughter from a sound sleep. While she likes the racing once she is at the hill, getting her there is another story altogether. It takes a calm focus to get her dressed, patiently listen to her grumbles, pack a healthy breakfast and lunch and make sure I have all the required gear packed and ready to go. Often we have to brave roads that are dark, snow packed and slippery along the way.

By the time we get on the highway, the sun is starting to peek above the horizon and the world is alive with everything other than people. It’s cold now, but soon it will warm up. We arrive at the hill right on time. I take a deep breath, unload my daughter, get her geared up and wish her luck. Now, it’s time to get myself organized. I bundle up, secure my i-Pod, insert my headphones (shhhh, don’t tell the ski patrol), and make my way to the chair for the first run. Now it is “me-time”.

I have spent the last couple of years always skiing with someone else, finding myself either trying to catch up, or waiting for someone to catch up to me. This year, with my daughter occupied for most of the day, I ended up skiing by myself a lot. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this alone time. With my head phones on, rarely do I talk with others on the chair ride up, and on the ski down I often sing to myself (sometimes loudly!). My energy is my own.

As crabby as I was and as reluctant as I seemed, it all makes sense now. I’m alone in my head, clearing out the fuzz as my skis slide across the snow, making that familiar “swooshing” sound. It’s as if they are whispering encouragement to me as I glide along. I’m pretty awesome, I begin to think.

There are a few reasons why I do this every weekend. The most important of these of course, being that it is important to my daughter. Aside from that, most of my reasons are purely selfish, like thinking I’d drop instant pounds by skiing all day Saturday and Sunday, or that after all that exercise, I would have endless energy and enthusiasm. Those things never really happened, but something else did.

My moods changed, my outlook improved, my habits altered. It was a new winter; a lighter life. There were just as many stresses and worries but I managed to “swoosh” them out of my system with each run down the hill. A whole week’s worth of worry and burden was somehow erased with a day of parallel turns. My vibration lifts.

And then there are the people. Every weekend I meet another “ski” family who, like us, spend the entire weekend at the ski hill. We fantasize about lazy weekend mornings, reading the paper and making waffles, and have our pre-ski saunas and hot tubs planned out in our heads, knowing that a warm hot chocolate, paired with the lingering effects of the high after skiing all day, is a great way to end a weekend day!

Almost through my first winter of being a “Ski Mom”, I’m not svelt and definitely not a pro skier. But, I am healthier, proud, grateful for the opportunity to ski – and happy!

What are you doing with your weekends and what effect does it have on you and how you feel? Are you finding positives in your negatives?

Sit Down, Slow Down, Calm Down

While at the ski hill last weekend, I found myself faced with a big dilemma - How to sit down, slow down and calm down while eating in the middle of a very busy chalet lunchroom? Believe it or not, it really is possible. Take a look at my video below to see how I did it. (Don't forget to watch the second video with outtakes, starring our daughter Madelyn. It's great for a Friday chuckle!)




Outtakes!

I Teach the Law of Attraction

I Teach the Law of Attraction. I teach people how to get more of what they want and less of what they don’t. What do I say to myself when I find myself attracting more of what I don’t want? My internal dialogue goes something like this:

”How can I possibly be an effective teacher, when I don’t have this perfected myself?” Believe it or not, I do have thoughts like this, more often than I care to admit.

The doubt and fear creep in when I am faced with personal struggles. For instance, if a friend and I are at odds or my husband and I aren’t seeing eye to eye on a particular topic. I think I am feeling pretty good, my vibrations feel high. I think I am focusing more on what I want, so why do I occasionally get something so different? Why isn’t my life presenting me with wonderful interaction or opportunity after wonderful interaction or opportunity?

With teaching and talking and learning and reading, slowly but surely I learn to answer my own questions. I call it contrast!

Contrast is essentially anything that shows up in your life that doesn’t feel very good. When my co-worker criticizes me, I call that contrast. Why my husband is out of sorts, I call that contrast. But, from this contrast comes clarity about what it is you really do want, and for this reason contrast is essential. You must learn to voice what it is that you want, rather than what you don’t. For instance:

“I`d like my business partner and I to want the same things and encourage and support each other.”

“I`d like my husband and I to be team players; to enjoy our time together; to uplift each other.”

In the moment you know what you don`t want, you become keenly aware of what you do want. You focus on your preferences and then they begin to draw to themselves, through the law of attraction, the essence of that which matches it. It then begins an immediate expansion.

As you pay attention to what you do want and continue to choose good feeling thoughts regarding that, you stay aligned with it. Now, it gently and easily appears in your experience – and you are well on your way to creating your desire! But, keep in mind that along with this often comes more contrast and an evolved perspective. The vibrational characteristics of you and everything about you have shifted somewhat, and you have moved into a new set of contrasting circumstances that will again inspire new preferences within you – and now, new desires emanate from you.

In the moment that you figure out that you want things to be different, it too begins to vibrationally draw towards itself, and it too expands. So now, as you continue to pay attention to the way you feel, and you choose good feeling thoughts regarding this newly born preference, you remain vibrationally aligned with it. Therefore, it gently and easily appears in your experience. Once again, you have created your desire. And, once again, you have achieved a powerful place of clarity where another new set of contrasting factors surround you – which will cause a new desire to be born ……

The point here is, you never get it all done, and things are never perfect, and that`s the way it is suppose to be!

This is how we get better. This is how life evolves. The valuable contrast continues to provide the birthing of endless new desires, and as each desire is born, the law of attraction responds to that desire. It is a never-ending, always flowing, pure, positive energy expansion.

So, I am doing it right! We are doing it right! That contrast is your pivot point, the signal, the calling, that you are now given the opportunity to move to something even greater, even better.

I am beginning to feel grateful for the contrast!

Did I Really Attract That?

Did I really do that?

The definition of the Law of Attraction states that, “whatever I give my attention, energy and focus to, I’ll get more of it, whether positive or negative”. I am at the stage of understanding the power of this Law such that when things happen in my life (either positive or negative) I take responsibility for it. I had a friend say to me (this friend was very connected to the Law of Attraction, understanding it so well),”If someone were to walk up to me and punch me in the face, I’d ask myself, what did I do to attract that?””

Most people naturally assume that if their life is not going the way they want it to go, something outside of themselves must be preventing the improvement, for no one would deliberately hold their own success away. But while pointing the blame at others may feel better than assuming responsibility for unwanted conditions, there is a very big negative repercussion to believing that something outside of you in the reason for your own lack of success. When you give the credit or the blame to another for your success or lack of it – you are powerless to make any change.

Please click here to read more

http://www.keystolawofattraction.com/what-am-i-attracting/

A Business Coach and Successful Weight Loss; what’s the connection???

This is the time of year when most people are talking about their New Year’s Resolutions, what they are, and how best to keep them – but personally, I don’t ever set them, at least not in January. I do set goals frequently, and I am constantly thinking about how I want my family life, relationships and career to unfold, it’s just that the calendar date is not my motivator. I do, however, want to share with you something I am planning on doing (and the fact that it starts in January is timely!)

I have decided to commit to working with a business mentor – someone to coach me with respect to my business development and success. I am paying someone to work with me. We will have monthly meetings in person as well as by phone (we talked on Skype the other day as she was out of the country), in addition to quarterly mastermind meetings with other like-minded entrepreneurs where we will spend 2 days planning, debating and improving each others business.

This is not easy for me – it’s not easy for me to pay for this, and it’s not easy for me to tell you!

Why you might ask?

My negative thought process goes something like this;

“I have an MBA for goodness sake, why would I pay someone to help me with strategy development?”

“I currently work as a marketing consultant, why would I pay someone to help me develop marketing strategy and tactics for my own business?”

“I have many years of senior management work experience; I don’t need anyone’s help”!

The Best Entrepreneurs Have a Great Boss!

However, I am doing it, and I am committed to it, because I know that in my previous (and current) work experiences I performed best when I had someone whom I admired and respected challenge the way I think, or provided me with insights that I alone can’t see. I am letting go of one of my flawed premises which says I must figure it all out myself.

Many of you know that I work with people who are having difficulty attaining their ideal body weight, and I do so by applying the principles of the Law of Attraction to weight loss (rather than merely focusing on food intake and exercise alone). I was struck by how similar my issue of working with a coach is to my clients who have issues with their weight.

You see overeating is not simply a food issue, but often is a relationship issue.

Weight issues are, on some level, a statement of our unavailability. Feeling separate from others, we build walls; then, having built a wall, we feel more separate from others. Separation becomes a theme, not only regarding our bodies but in other aspects of our life as well (take my coaching example). A wall goes up around us physically and energetically or (vibrationally) as we learn to dissociate from others in ways both large and small.

Something that keeps us trapped in a pattern of over eating is our tendency to isolate. For in isolation we feel permission to self-destruct. Without someone there to say, “Don’t do it”; you are free to indulge the deepest craving. Now, don’t get me wrong, there is such a thing as splendid solitude, but isolation is not it. Isolating is a defense against relationships; and for the over eater, it’s the way to avoid dealing with others so that you can have your relationship with food all by yourself. Food will not pressure you. If you stand alone, there are no consequences if your e-zine doesn’t get sent out on time. Food will accept you. Food will understand you. Food will make you feel better. Alcohol reads from the same handbook, by the way.

I am learning to release my belief that I should know it all by this age and stage, reaching across the wall that separates me from my coach, and establishing a pattern of connection in a place where I hadn’t allowed it before. This re-patterning is a path I believe to not only great business success, but attainment of a healthy happy body.

Working on this is not a New Year’s Resolution for me; it’s not something I can just check off my to-do list. You can’t just get it over with. This issue – like most – involves a lifelong journey that once begun, never ends. It is a journey not simply into food recovery, or business success, or relationship success etc., but into a more light-filled life. It is a journey into the heart of love, toward others and towards you.

Marlene

PS – If you do set New Year’s Resolutions, here is something for you to think about. Resolutions, like many new decisions, are often made from a clear awareness of what we do not want or of what has not gone well. Try to spend some time lining up your thoughts and beliefs (vibrations) with your new decision. For example, if a resolution to earn more money is coming from a keen awareness of the absence of enough money, the Law of Attraction will match your vibration of lack. Try making your resolutions or your goals come from a place of expectation rather than doubt, from a place of belief rather than scepticism.

PPS – Very excited about being on Rogers Daytime Ottawa Television on Thursday, January 13. Please stay tuned for further information!

Reframing for the Holidays

I’m not talking about reframing your pictures, but rather reframing your thoughts!

The countdown to the holidays are on, the snow is starting to pile up making travel a bit slower, line ups are a bit longer, work demands are increasing as you prepare for some time off, and your credit card is working overtime. We all know that this can be a time of year when the pressure starts to rise, the stress starts to take hold, and chances are you might find yourself a little short or impatient with those you love, and/or that sore throat starts to bother you.

Is this you I am referring to?

I know I am certainly capable of this behavior at times, and as soon as I noticed it, help was delivered to me – not once, but twice!

I regularly follow the blogs/newsletters of two women, both of whom this week wrote about how to look at situations differently!

Deb Dunn, http://getitdunn.ca/blog/?p=212 in her blog post entitled 12 Days of Joyful Reconnection talks about how she was feeling waiting in a long line at the post office. The service was slow, she found herself criticizing the postal workers etc. etc.

“As I grew more annoyed I noticed that my body was also tensing up and I immediately realized I needed to do something differently. I needed to change the way I was thinking.”

Deb then goes on to talk about what thoughts she focused on to reframe her thinking, and ends up with the following comment:

“Shifting my mood from annoyed and stressed to playful changed everything for me. It seemed like the line moved faster, I received great service and when I left, both the clerk and I were laughing”

Jeannette Koczela, in her blog post entitled Gratitude for What Didn’t Happen http://empoweredspiritcoaching.com/blog/ talks about taking a bad situation (car troubles) and feeling positive about it.

“Last week my alternator broke down on my car and it was barely able to limp into the repair shop before it died completely. The battery light had gone on the night before and I made an appointment the next day to have it checked out. I ran one errand before going to the shop and when I came out the car wouldn’t start at first, then would only go about 15 miles an hour, and the lights, clock, and turn signals weren’t functioning all the way to the repair shop. It was kind of scary.”

“But what was even scarier was that it didn’t happen the day before. We had just driven to Milwaukee (a 7-hour drive) and back for Thanksgiving weekend. When I brought the car to the repair shop, the attendant couldn’t understand why I was so happy. “The alternator broke today, not yesterday,” I said. I was so grateful for what didn’t happen—that it could have broken during the trip.”

Each of us have a choice in every moment, and that choice is to feel a little better or to feel a little worse. It is that simple, feel a little better, or feel a little worse.

I invite you, over the holidays, to play with guiding your thoughts in the direction of things that feel good, and discover the power that comes with this. Watch how lines move quicker, sales people are more pleasant, and lights turn green for you more often.

Share with me your stories, and in turn I’ll share them with others. Tell me how you are turning your thoughts around this holiday season.

Happy Holidays

Marlene