Attractive Attraction

In Twelve Step meetings, it’s traditional to groan when someone says, “Let’s have a gratitude meeting.” People don’t like to talk or think about what they’re grateful for. It’s not in our nature. We’re more tuned to what’s going wrong than what’s going right. We can’t help it. The cave men who sat around and admired how white the teeth on the saber toothed tiger were, didn’t last long enough to reproduce. The ones who realized those teeth were a bad thing are our ancestors, so to speak.

But gratitude is important. Sometimes I just sit in my office, which I painted and decorated myself after moving into a wonderful new house, and I look at all the hangings on the wall and the things on my desk and the books on my shelves and I remember growing up in a house where I couldn’t sleep in my bedroom in the winter because the north wind blew through the window and the room was uninhabitable. And I feel grateful.

Gratitude gets a bad rap as being some sort of “feel-good” thing, but it’s not. Real, true, deep gratitude comes from the soul. It’s not some pop-culture thing. It’s not something you say to make yourself look good or to make someone else feel good.

Real gratitude is truly appreciating what you have, and feeling it’s enough. Sure, there are other things you’d like to have. There always will be. But in gratitude, you realize that if you don’t get the new car or the new house, it’s enough.

We should be “grateful for gratitude” because it’s one of the fastest ways to appreciate our lives and feel happier. This simple technique, practiced every day, can change your life.

About The Author

Angie Dixon helps small business owners get their acts together. She is a personal development coach specializing in helping people integrate their home and work lives so they feel less stretched and more balanced. Get her FREE EBOOK on balance at http://www.discoveringtruenorth.com. For questions or to discover how coaching can change your life, contact Angie at mailto:angie@discoveringtruenorth.com.

You are free to use this article in ezines, web sites and print publications. If you do use it, please send a quick email to mailto:angie@discoveringtruenorth.com. Thank you.

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I’m willing to go out on a limb here and say that there isn’t a person on the planet that doesn’t have a desire of some kind. I’ll even go out on another limb and state that every person on the planet has more than one desire at a time. Whether it’s wanting more money, a new home, a relationship, more sleep, more love in the world or even a desire to laugh more in life, it’s all about wanting something we don’t have at the moment we are wanting it. Depending on any one person’s circumstance, each desire can feel just as unattainable and create a feeling of frustration and/or hopelessness.

Here’s the truth about desires; we will always have unfulfilled desires and it’s because of that, you will continue to grow and expand in your life. Whenever you reach one place or fulfill one desire, you will then automatically find yourself moving to the next place with the next desire. There is nothing wrong with this. This is human nature and to find yourself in a place of having desires and having them fulfilled is exhilarating. It can almost become a game and there are a few rules, that when followed accordingly, can create the feeling of winning even before your desire has manifested.

Rule #1: When you’re in a place with unfulfilled desires remember to not feel a sense of fear, anxiety, frustration or even impatience. Did I just hear a, “Yeah, right,” with a tone of sarcasm in there? That’s fine. I know how you feel. I’ve been there myself only to realize once I started playing by the Universe’s rules and not my own, everything changed for me. You see it’s those exact emotions that keep your desires from being fulfilled because you’re not in a receiving place. It’s not your job to figure out all the ways to get your desires fulfilled. It is your job to be very clear in asking for what you want and to trust with all your heart everything will come to you at the perfect time. When you get the urge to take an action toward fulfilling your desire that feels wonderful to you, then do so. But only if it feels right. Do not push action on yourself just because you think you should be doing something. That will only bring you more frustration and you won’t have any fun in the process.

Rule #2: Focus on what is working in your life and feeling more of your true essence more often. Ask yourself anytime you’re full of doubt and fear, “What is working?” Allow yourself to live on the outside, what really exists on the inside of your soul with your values, integrity and needs. Match your inside to your outside world so they become one and the same. Focus on what’s true for you without the concern of what others may think. When you do these things you are becoming a vibrational match to everything that is rightfully yours just waiting to show up in your life which can ultimately feel like a miracle, fulfilling your desires in ways greater than you ever imagined possible.

Rule #3: Be aware of your thoughts. When you watch what pops up in your mind throughout the day about your desires you will begin to notice if you’ve got more negative chatter going on or more positive chatter. Or as I call it, your Gremlin or your Genie. Once there is an awareness of your thoughts your world can begin to change. In a heartbeat, you can change your thought and create it to be anything that makes you feel good. You can even take yourself on a mini vacation. Use your imagination to create a scene that you’re in where you feel a sense of joy, fun, peace or calmness. Whatever you need at the time. Go there alone, so you don’t have to pay attention to how anyone else is feeling or respond to what he or she may say. This is strictly for you and your well-being. You only need to go there for a very short time, just create change in your thought pattern and raise your vibration enough so you become aligned with what you’re desiring by feeling good. When you feel a shift leave the scene and go about your day. You can do this many times throughout the day to create the shift you’re wanting. I promise you, the more you do this, the less your Gremlin will show up, the better you’ll feel and the quicker your desires get fulfilled.

Rule # 4: Although this rule is simple it tends to be the hardest to grasp at a cellular, all knowing level. Trust. Trust that all your desires have been heard and are in the process of being fulfilled. When your thoughts, feelings, words and actions are in alignment, your unfulfilled desires will be fulfilled faster than you can create a new desire.

Rule #5: This rule may be the most important rule of all. Live in gratitude for all that you have in life. No matter what is going on there is always something to be grateful for and the Universe responds so graciously to gratitude when it is authentic and heartfelt. I’m going to suggest that you create a gratitude journal and write in it everyday. It only takes a couple of minutes to come up with a few things to be grateful for each day and when you do this you’ll open yourself up to receiving more and more things to thank the Universe for.

So embrace your unfulfilled desires and be willing, for the next 30 days, to play by these five rules and see what shows up differently for you. You may find certain desires getting fulfilled or maybe you’ll feel lighter about life in general. Either way, if you don’t give it a whirl you’ll never know what could have been.

Copyright 2005, Linda Salazar all rights reserved. This article may be reproduced in its entirety as long as all credits are included.

Linda Salazar
Certified Personal Life Coach, Author, Speaker
310-375-4800
Awaken The Genie Within

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One factor that makes a big difference in how much control you have over your life is your time horizon. In the span of a day or a week, you have a fair amount of control over your life, but it’s certainly not 100%. In any given week, just about anything can happen, and your plans can be thrown completely off by factors outside your control. Even over the course of a year, your goals can be totally sidetracked. You can be hit with an unexpected health problem or suffer a major financial setback. I’ve certainly had at least one year where everything seemed to go askew and where getting back on track took months.

But in the long run, when you hit time horizons of 5, 10, or 20 years, your degree of control is closer to 100%. The short-term randomness tends to cancel out.

If you want to start a new business this week, your ability to accomplish that goal may not be anywhere near 100%. But if you want to start a new business within the next 5 years, no matter what your starting condition, you’re virtually 100% capable of making it happen if you choose to do so. There are very few setbacks that will nuke your ability to get moving in the direction of your goals for more than a year.

People often overestimate what they can reasonably achieve in a year. But they vastly underestimate what they can achieve in 5 years. In a five-year period you can go from sitting in the stands as a spectator to becoming an Olympic gold medalist in the decathlon. It’s been done. Think about what you can achieve between now and 2010 if you commit to it. You can lose any amount of weight and develop any kind of physique you want. You can start your own business and make it profitable. You can meet the mate of your dreams and start a family. You can relocate to anywhere in the world. You can learn to speak a new language fluently. You can write a book. You can become skilled at any musical instrument. You can learn to act or dance or speak or write.

If you’ve been complaining about not being able to get started on one of your major goals for a week or a month, you may be doing so for good reason. Perhaps you are indeed experiencing setbacks that have prevented you from getting started. But if you’ve been making excuses for more than a year, the responsbility for the delay is almost certainly yours alone.

You have an enormous degree of control and power when you think with a time horizon of 5 years. Don’t let that potential go to waste. Set a course now and get moving.

Copyright © Steve Pavlina

Steve Pavlina
Personal Development for Smart People
http://www.stevepavlina.com
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog (blog)
http://www.stevepavlina.com/articles (articles)

Steve is intensely growth-oriented. He trained in martial arts, ran the L.A. Marathon, and graduated from college in three semesters with two degrees. He can juggle, count cards at blackjack, and make damn good guacamole. Steve is also a polyphasic sleeper, sleeping just 2-3 hours per day and only 20 minutes at a time. So chances are good that he’s awake right now.

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