Do You Need a Whack to Your Thinking?

May you enjoy my Soulgoal Missive that I wrote in July 2008, which includes my first date that happened years earlier. Reading it was a good reminder to me about the value of change and how we (translate: I) can resist it. Do you need a whack to your thinking?

 

After two years of flying solo following my marital separation, somebody asked me out on a date. I could pick any restaurant I wanted – so off we went to a salsa club to dine and take my second dance lesson.

As our discussion progressed during dinner, the topic of relationships arose. Remember, this was my first foray into the dating arena in many a year.

“No, I didn’t notice the tan line on your ring-free, left hand finger signifying you wear a wedding ring and you’re married,” I said to the “gentleman.”

Did I let this throw me? I made a choice to course correct. I was not willing to let this bozo mar the memory of my first date.

I remained undaunted and had a great night with excellent conversation. Turned out he was a lucid and prophetic dreamer with juicy peeks into the aeries of the dream world.

The next and final time we met, I gave him a book on spiritual dreaming and the number of a therapist.

I could handle change like this, but why did I buck at smaller things?

I picked up a message at 11 PM from my hairdresser, the night before my 10 AM appointment, which informed me she moved.

My monkey mind whined. Instead of her being 45 minutes away, she would be an hour away. Wrong. Travel time was only 35 minutes – and the new place was definitely nicer. Why did she move locations? She needed a change.

Then there was the lawn sprinkler last week. Not having an automated system necessitated moving the sprinkler several times. A friend bought and installed timers. I graciously accepted them but said to myself, “This is a waste; I have to be outdoors to move them around anyway.” Wrong. They are wonderful.

I changed the way I do things. Now I water automatically and forget about it. Later when I have the time, I water the rest.

If you want something you never have had, you have to be willing to do something you never have done.

We want our lives to be different, but we want things to remain the same.

We often evaluate our options logically and make a decision based on the best knowledge our minds have to offer. But our thinking is so limited compared to the world of possibilities.

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“Discovery consists of looking at the same things as everyone else and thinking something different… Those ideas or situations that cause you to get off your routine paths and ‘think something different’ are whacks to your thinking.” 

Roger von Oech
A Whack on the Side of the Head – How You Can Be More Creative

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We have to make changes to allow our heart’s desires to enter our lives. If we do not respond to the gentle nudges that always precede a change, the two by four whack eventually will bonk us.

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to identify where you have been resisting change in your life and look at it from another viewpoint. Take a chance; make a change in your approach.

With a zest for Life,
Virginia

Success Thought

“Life moves on, whether we act as cowards or heros.
Life has no other discipline to impose, if we would but realize it, than to accept life unquestioningly.
Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate or despise, serves to defeat us in the end.
What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy and strength, if faced with an open mind.
Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such.”

Henry Miller

 

Ready for a change but you don’t know how?
Contact me for a complimentary
Do What You Love Break Free Session.

Email me at:

virginia@soulgoals.com

I work with people
who choose to share their gifts
or business in a BIGGER way
but don’t know how, feel stuck
or would benefit from new tools
or support.

I help them be richly compensated
doing what they love by discovering
their Soul’s goals.

Copyright © 2019 Soulgoals, All rights reserved.

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The Cheshire Cat on Your Direction

May the Cheshire Cat inspire you to find clear direction.

How can you pick a direction if you don’t know where you’re going? This is Alice’s dilemma in Alice in Wonderland.

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“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”

“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cheshire Cat.

“I don’t much care where–” said Alice.

“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.

“–so long as I get SOMEWHERE,” Alice added as an explanation.

“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”

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Would you rather go anywhere or somewhere?

Anywhere might be the same or worse than where you are now. That is, unless you have an idea of where you want to go. Then you’d be somewhere not just anywhere. And that somewhere would be of your choosing.

Although some may tell you to go to a fiery destination, nobody knows where you ought to go but you.

So, the first step is clarity.

KEY:  Your inner GPS, the quiet voice within, knows and shows you your best place to shine.

Life is a dance. If you listen to the voice within, you’ll be directed to the best “dance class” to get your shine on. You don’t have to know the steps in advance as you’ll be taught along the way. Life works with intention and is a great dance teacher.

Your job is to name your dance.

A client who experienced personal devastation is continuing to find happiness while creating a new life.

How? By taking quiet time every morning to visualize. Imagine how you’d like your day to go. 

Results? Whatever was pictured in the morning happened during the day! The cumulative effect over time created a magnificent home, fulfilling work, more money than ever, a lifelong partner, exercise program, plus peace of mind.

Focus on where you want to get to.

Direct your attention, as the Cat said, to “where you want to get to” and stop mulling over your confusion or all the annoying things that you don’t want in your life.

Change the channel from your inner noise to your breathing – in and out. As your thoughts quiet and you’re feeling more neutral, ask for clarity about direction and the best steps for you to take.

Not clear yet? There’s your ego, that can be clueless, and your wise self (your Essence), that already has your answers.

Begin by asking for wisdom to take center stage.

Then, see yourself living your ideal day. Feel yourself living the life you’d love to live. Imagine that it’s not only possible. What’s coming next may seem delusional until you see that it works… act as if it’s already happening now.

Later, observe how your day and life mirror your intentions… and be amazed at how it matches what you thought about at the beginning of your day.

Don’t worry if you’re not perfect at it when you begin because you may be slipping in and out of negative thinking of what you don’t want. Practice.

Life can be a controllable thing. It starts with knowing your direction!

PS Know someone who might be inspired by this Wonderland story of Alice? Pass it on.

Want clarity?
Contact me for a complimentary
Do What You Love Break Free Session.

Email me at:virginia@soulgoals.com

I work with people
who choose to share their gifts
or business in a BIGGER way
but don’t know how, feel stuck
or would benefit from new tools
or support.

I help them be richly compensated
doing what they love by discovering
their Soul’s goals.

Copyright © 2019 Soulgoals, All rights reserved.

Your Good is on Its Way

 

Before I wrote my Soulgoals’ blog, I published a weekly article called Soulgoal Missives. Recently, I came across this folder of these posts and thought I’d share with you a missive I wrote in 2002 titled “Your Good is on Its Way.” May your good grow in whatever ways are meaningful to you!

Sometimes the good we desire in life seems to come to people around us first. If we can praise and give thanks for another’s blessings, rather than be envious and jealous and critical, then we can be assured that those same blessings (or even greater ones) will come to us.
Catherine Ponder, Open Your Mind to Prosperity

 

I had wonderful, good news. Something very special happened. Metaphorically, for me it was as if I’d won the lottery jackpot.

When I shared it with a couple of friends, I knew they were happy for me. But at the same time, there was disappointment and a tinge of sadness that they hadn’t hit the “lottery,” too.

Continuing with my lottery metaphor, they were buying tickets regularly and wanted to win for a long time. I imagined winning but didn’t play much. However, someone offered me a winning ticket, and now I’m enjoying the benefits.

I thought that if they understood a nuance of life, then they’d be ecstatic for me.

Nothing comes to us, nothing enters our life, unless some part of us is in alignment with it.

When others have goodness come into their lives, and then they’re around me, that means my good is on its way… IF I ACCEPT IT. If I get bummed out because someone else was successful at something and I wasn’t, then I send my good away.

When something good happens to someone around me, even if it’s180 degrees opposite of where I am, even if I’m in the pit of despair about this very topic, someone’s success inspires me with a reason to rejoice as it’s a sign, a messenger, that my own good is on its way. 

With this perspective, jealousy, envy, sadness, disappointment and discouragement, because of another’s success, go flying out the window. These emotions send our good away.

Knowing how this works, chasing our good away suggests we’re either experiencing temporary insanity or invested in self-sabotage.

How does feeling good about someone else’s good affect us? Let’s look at it from a point of view that all life is energy, and that energy is affected by our emotional state.

Imagine someone is flat broke and doesn’t know where to get rent money. Being in the dumps makes it difficult to earn any money or come up with ideas to make some.

Then information comes that a large, unexpected check is in the mail. Instant relief – the pressure is off. Happiness. Gratitude. Enthusiasm. Feelings shift to being upbeat and creative – ideas flow and new thoughts are magnetized toward this dynamic state. Élan vital, a vital force or impulse of life, is tapped. Nothing is the same after that.

The world of imagination is made real.

When we tap the élan vital, we shift our ability to receive the abundance that life offers. Life is waiting to bring us blessings; to receive them we must be in a state of willingness, allowing this grace to enter.

After our conversation about my “winning the lottery,” one of my friends opened up to the possibility of winning, too. The next day she e-mailed me about two lottery tickets someone gave her. She didn’t hit the jackpot, but she is grateful for winning tickets.

Your good is close; be willing to let it in. This is grace; invite and allow it to work through you and touch your life. The more you allow this heightened state of accepting life’s bounty as part of who you are, the more magical and extraordinary your life becomes.

Your challenge, if you choose to accept it, is to celebrate other people’s successes.

If someone shares a success with you, find a place inside of yourself that’s genuinely thrilled and happy for him or her – as if it happened to you. Don’t judge that it’s not good enough or too good! Practice gratitude that someone with this experience is either around you or that you learned about it. Then assume your good is near and will appear in its own way, when the time is just right.

Truly, your good is not just on its way, it’s here now. Open your eyes to see it.

 

Ready for more good in your life?
Contact me for a complimentary
Do What You Love Break Free Session.

Email me at:
virginia@soulgoals.com

I work with people
who choose to share their gifts
or business in a BIGGER way
but don’t know how, feel stuck
or would benefit from new tools
or support.

I help them be richly compensated
doing what they love by discovering
their Soul’s goals.

I Deleted 200 Phone Contacts

My contact list cleansing started innocently when my journaling meandered to an experience that happened a few months ago. On multiple occasions, I had conversations and hugs with a woman who works at a local store. We enjoyed some similar interests.

Longer story short, I invited her to my home; she was going to give me ideas about colors to paint my rooms. I thought it would be a nice opportunity to know her better, too.

She was to arrive at 2 PM. An hour earlier, I started to prepare food dishes that I planned for her visit.

At 2:01, she texted me: “Hey Virginia. This date won’t work.”

Mmmm, like she just realized this one minute after she was supposed to arrive? No other comment?

I texted a cordial reply.

Next I invited my 79-year old neighbor to join me as I lured her with a change of beverage from tea to wine. We savored my array of appetizers and our conversation.

While journaling, it occurred to me that the name of the woman who was a no-show started with an “A,” was at the beginning of my phone Contacts, and I saw it practically every time I opened my list.

As I don’t plan on needing this woman’s number anymore — she’s changing jobs, I’m unlikely to see her again, there’s no reason for her to call me and the thought of her was attached to this experience — why was I keeping her phone number?

Delete contact.

Ms. “A” was the beginning of 200 more contacts who met their expunged destinies. After a while, I realized I was following a method similar to cleaning closets. If I haven’t talked with them for a long while and we no longer share mutual interests… DELETE CONTACT! If I really need their numbers, I could find a way to get them.

• I no longer have anything in common with this person. Delete.
• Most people in this organization and I are on different wavelengths. Delete. Delete. Delete.
• These people are unkind, in general and to me. Others have already blocked them. Delete. Delete.
• For years, I’ve neither talked with nor do I have any interest in communicating with these people, who I’ve known since before the invention of the telephone. Delete. Delete.
• Do I really think they’re going to realize they were the jerks and owe me an apology? Wake up! Delete. Delete.
• These people are dead! Find another way to remember them. Delete. Delete.

And so the process began with a keen consideration about why I kept them on my list.

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As clarity came once I got into the swing of why and how to let go, it became easier to release.

Letting go was liberating. I felt empowered. 

I discovered that a part of me had been holding myself back.

Until I finished letting go of them on my list, I didn’t realize that I also deleted unconscious thoughts and feelings that I should be the person that some of them wanted me to be. I let go of ugly interactions.

Especially if I hadn’t talked with them for years and didn’t believe there’d be future contact, what was I holding onto? 

In part, I’d been holding onto memories or a vision of rewriting who we are together, that our lives hadn’t drifted in different directions.

For others, it meant that for me to have a mutually satisfying relationship with them, I’d have to be who I used to be or someone else to fit in.

That’s no longer an option, and this exercise let go of old energy to make room for me to be ME in a bigger way.

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Before computerization, I pulled out cards with contact info of people I knew when I lived on the other side of the country. I didn’t want to let them go, but we hadn’t talked because we were no longer involved with mutual activities. I secured the cards with a rubber band and filed them with other papers.

When I found the pile of cards later, I couldn’t even remember who they were.

We grow. We move on.

No longer seeing certain names so frequently helps to refocus on the now and the future instead of the past.

I often feel profound gratitude to be with friends and clients who have traveled life’s roads with me, or our paths have periodically intersected, sometimes for decades. I’ve also discovered that the caliber of these individuals is often worlds apart from those who I attracted 10, 20 or more years ago. With my current peeps, I can more fully be myself. They understand my heart and what I teach. As a result their lives, and mine because of them, have gotten better and better.

Removing those 200 contacts created space, and the universe doesn’t like a vacuum. This means I’m attracting those who are in greater energetic alignment with who I am now.

What are you willing to let go of so you can move on to bigger and better things?

P.S. Know someone who might enjoy this post? Please share.

Looking to let go of who or what
doesn’t serve you and open
to greater success?
Contact me for a complimentary
Do What You Love Break Free Session.

Email me at:
virginia@soulgoals.com

I work with people
who choose to share their gifts
or business in a BIGGER way
but don’t know how, feel stuck
or would benefit from new tools
or support.

I help them be richly compensated
doing what they love by discovering
their Soul’s goals.

 

Copyright © 2019 Soulgoals, All rights reserved.

Go with the Flow or Let the Flow Go?

This week, I received a card from a client and friend that said, “Go with the flow” with a lovely handwritten sentiment inside. While wondering what to write this week, I thought I’d enjoy sharing this concept.

However, when I went online to find related ideas, I was intrigued to find quotes like this:

“If you decide to just go with the flow, you’ll end up where the flow goes, which is usually downhill, often leading to a big pile of sludge and a life of unhappiness. You’ll end up doing what everyone else is doing.”
― Sean Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens

Ah, he’s writing to teenagers, so that makes sense. Sometimes they’re just going along with their peers, which might lead to the lowest common denominator. Going with that flow may not be the best choice.

Here’s another:

“Is it better to go with the flow or let the flow go?” Aidan Chambers

What if the flow is you thinking about things that aren’t working for you in your life or business? This flow will keep you regurgitating self-defeating beliefs.

Herein lies a core question. With which flow are you going?

I expand on this idea in Lesson 2 of my Soulgoals program:

First, what’s the mastermind energy? There are seven Soulgoals’ Mastermind Principles. Here are three of them.

Mastermind Principle #1. I believe there’s an energy created when two or more gather in harmony…

Mastermind Principle #2. I trust that the mastermind energy can and does manifest goals I choose or something better… 

Mastermind Principle #5. I choose to be in divine flow, surrender control to the mastermind, and focus on the present moment.
 
Choose to be in divine flow
 
Life consists of flows of energy. Which flows do you follow?
 
If you tell a policeman you were speeding because you went with the flow of traffic, you’d get a ticket.
 
Do you go with the flow of conversation with people who gossip or talk a lot about their problems?
 
When you choose to be in divine flow, you allow the universal energy and your spirit to take you beyond the daily chaos and ego’s desires.
 
Divine flow elevates you to a zone beyond fear and resistance, to be at peace with what is. You relax and release fixed ideas of how you think your life should go by knowing there’s a bigger plan in play.

Go with the Flow or Let the Flow Go?

It depends on which flow it is!

 

P.S. Know someone who might enjoy this post? Please share.

Looking to get into your own flow
of brilliance, creativity and success…
whatever success means to you?
Contact me for a complimentary
Do What You Love Break Free Session.

Email me at:
virginia@soulgoals.com

I work with people
who choose to share their gifts
or business in a BIGGER way
but don’t know how, feel stuck
or would benefit from new tools
or support.

I help them be richly compensated
doing what they love by discovering
their Soul’s goals.

Copyright © 2019 Soulgoals, All rights reserved.