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Horizons Magazine
APRIL 2001
Nothing needs to change but your perception, celebrations, we get what we focus on
Hello and welcome to the April 2001 issue of Horizons Magazine. April is always
my favorite month because I was born on April 10. As I near the half century mark,
I find more and more to celebrate, and not just on my birthday, either. As I get older,
I notice that I allow myself to enjoy life with more abandon, that I am less reserved
and restricted than I was in my younger years. I've come to depend less on what others think about me, and more on what I know to be true. I've had a lot longer time to exercise my faith muscle and see that it is true that when I step out in faith, I always land upon solid ground. This applies in every area of my life.
I'd been feeling restless lately. I'm recovering from my car accident late last year, and have acquired a little anxiety about driving. I know it will pass, but in the meantime I spend much time in the office, rather than travelling to my magical second home in Murphy, North Carolina every few months, which was a real pressure valve for me. Being a little homebound since the accident, I need to continually rearrange my living and working space so I don't get cabin fever. My latest project was to put a large window in the west wall of my front office, which now looks out into my west woods and campfire area. I added a few bird feeders and wind chimes and rigged a little basket I could run up and down on a halyard to put peanuts in to feed the squirrels. It was the same yard I've been looking at for 18 years, but suddenly I had a fresh perspective on it and put it to use that now brings me great enjoyment. As A Course In Miracles says, nothing ever needs to change except your perception.
It's important to me to stay connected to the outside and to nature, especially during a healing process. Right now, even though I'm at the very deadline pressure time for the magazine and have only hours before it is due at the printer, I can sit at my desk and watch the squirrels cavort in the treetops and the cardinals and bluejays jockeying for position at the birdfeeders. When I'm in here after dark, I have lights in the woods and can watch the raccoons and opossums make their way along the trail from the firepit.
This was going to be my non-Horizons studio, an office where I could create art and work on my personal writing and projects, without looking at an in box full of magazine work that needed my attention. Of course, within hours of the window being completed, my new studio became the layout room for the April issue of Horizons Magazine. So much for discipline.
In this issue, Elizabeth Owens talks about birthdays and celebrations and reminds us that perception is the key and that we can create new realities simply by choosing how we perceive events in our lives. I've had friend after well-meaning friend come up to me after the accident and remark what an awful thing happened to me and how unfortunate that I lost lots of ability to use my hands for months afterward and am still not back to normal. Especially since I'm self employed and create Horizons Magazine on my own every month. My perception is that I was extremely lucky to have walked away from an accident that totalled my van. I was extremely blessed that I could manage to dress and groom myself. I was thankful I had friends I could call on to help me with typing and cleaning and opening envelopes or jars or those poptop cat food cans. I was grateful that my injuries were being treated by physicians I liked and had confidence in. It's all about perception. By understanding, as Elizabeth writes, that all life changes are natural processes, we can put an uplifting spin on any event. She reminds us that if something makes us unhappy or disappointed, we have the power to change our perspective and how it effects us.
Our mind is powerful; it can talk us into - or out of - almost anything. "Whatever dominant thoughts you consistently hold in mind, " Dr. Kioni says, "will manifest. The key to turning your life around is in the type of thoughts you habitually think. " I know this to be true. When I notice my thoughts are on a downward spiral, for any reason, if I can remember to stop as soon as I notice it and change my focus, I quickly get out of that "negative" frame of mind. I don't like that term "negative," but what I mean by it is when I find myself rerunning thoughts in my head about things I don't want to experience in the future or didn't enjoy experiencing in the past. I'm not one to worry or beat myself up for things that have happened, or to have regrets. I've made plenty of mistakes in the past and feel I've learned from them, so there's no need to carry that emotional baggage into my future. I have nothing in my life that makes me ask, "where did I go wrong?" or "what if I'd done this instead of that?" I've learned that it is what it is and I try to make informed, conscious choices in my Now.
One of my favorite sayings is "Take responsibility for how you perceive life and how you react to it." Dr. Lloyd Thomas says in this issue, "Becoming responsible for all your behavior and its consequences empowers you to control your own desired changes." Becoming responsible means you don't fly off the handle at anything anyone says, because you're taking the time to really hear them and consider their words and what's behind them. Being responsible means you don't get angry in traffic and grumble at other drivers, knowing that on some level you vibrationally attracted that traffic experience to you. Being responsible means you don't blame your lover for leaving you or your boss for firing you or your child for disrepecting you because, on some level, you attracted those experiences to yourself by virtue of your vibrational resonance. Your vibrational resonance is determined by the balance of your thoughts on a moment by moment basis. If you spend more than 50% of your time continually griping and criticizing and talking about what sad and unfair things are going on in the world, then what you're in vibrational harmony with is experiencing sad and unfair things. If you find yourself among people who continually gripe and blame and gossip and criticize, and you're not having fun, you might consider stopping yourself in mid-thought and make different choices about what to think and say. You might make different choices about where to spend your time, and with whom. I have friends I dearly love and choose not to spend much time with because they cannot seem to get their lives together and take responsibility for themselves. After awhile, that stops being fun.
Alan Cohen says the people around us tend to become who we think they are, and gives a great story on page 15 of how an elementary teacher - who thought her newest class was full of geniuses - began treating them as though they were, getting A's and B's out of all of them. She learned later that what she thought was their IQ scores on her roster was actually their locker numbers *hehe* We can help those around us to become more of what they can be, if we can see them as happy and secure and responsible and profitable, despite whatever appearance they offer us. Or as Mother Theresa said, "to recognize Jesus in all his distressing disguises." Of course, we'll always run across those who resent us for not going down the pity path with them, and joining them in their misery, and if you keep mindful of your thoughts, you'll notice that these people soon leave your experience because you're just not going there with them.
Philip Humbert reminds us that if we feel confusion about which direction to take, we simply need to pick a direction and take it. Many of the people I counsel with feel they want to be involved in something yet don't know what it is. I ask what they like to do and the answer is often, "I don't know, nothing interests me." They haven't taken the initiative to try a bunch of new things and see what they might like. Feeling depressed, having lack of direction and focus and being overcome with inertia is a stage everyone goes through on their way to self-realization. It's the natural result of too much input and not enough application. Just as we input food for fuel, when what we input exceeds what we're able to process, we have congestion and feel stuffed, fat and lazy. We can input the same amount of food while we're active and burning it as fuel, and it will simply fuel our activity. Just so, when we read and learn about new concepts, unless we make some kind of practical application with what we're studying, the info will just fill our heads and cause congestion.
I must have read half a dozen books on feng shui until I finally found one I understood enough to begin using the principles it contained. I charted my home and office and found out what each area related to and made some design changes to incorporate "remedies" in areas that could benefit by feng shui. I suddenly "got" what the other books had been trying to tell me as well, and was surprised at how much information I remembered and could suddenly use. It was like being able to read for the first time, or speak a new language. Suddenly I understood the symbolism and could apply what I knew to what I was doing. Before that time, all I had was a congested head full of feng shui info that I didn't know what to do with.
I must have read dozens of books beginning in the 1970's on the idea that thoughts are things, that we create our experience by what we think. Yet it didn't really sink in that that was a literal truth until the mid1980's when I began doing creative visualization work and consistently saw results. Before that, the info was sitting useless in my mind until one day I had a situation I didn't like, and prayed for guidance about it. The guidance I received was that I already had all the tools I needed to bring about the solution. I began by making note of how I felt stuck where I was, and why I felt stuck there. Then I turned my attention to where I wanted to be and what I wanted to be doing and who I wanted to be doing it with. I ran the tape of that scenario through my mind a few times daily and, as a result, began to change my perception of my current situation. As I continued to ask for guidance and use creative visualization, I began to have ideas that helped me make good choices about my future and, within the span of three months, I was happily out of a codependant relationship with an alcoholic, living in a bigger apartment, working at a better job and having fun coworkers around me. Three months earlier I would not have believed it. I would not have believed it was as simple as taking control of my thoughts and directing them where I wanted to go.
We get what we focus on. Whatever we spend our days talking about and thinking about, is going to come more fully into our experience tomorrow. Most of us don't even know half of what we say. We all know people who have to fill every silence with a running commentary of what they see and think. "Look at that dress, do you believe she's wearing that in public? I saw J yesterday, she starts drinking about noon, I can't believe how much weight she's gained. Are you going to eat that roll? Can I taste your jello? I can't believe B still smokes, have you seen how yellow his teeth are? Too many people wear perfume these days, it makes my environmental sensitivities act up. Your nails look nice, I can tell they're acrylic because of the smell. Isn't it hard to type and wash dishes? Why do I always have to do all the talking?"
Sound familiar? A person like that doesn't have enough space in their mind to allow thoughts of a higher order. They are too intent on commenting about everything. Not everything needs a comment. Sri Satya Sai Baba says, "Speak only when it is true, useful and good." Try doing that for the next 30 days and keeping sacred silence otherwise. You'll be amazed at what transpires. While you are holding your tongue, hold your thoughts also by internally repeating a phrase such as "peace, be still" or silently focusing on your breath. "I am breathing and brushing my hair. I am breathing and feeding the cats. I am breathing and driving." Become aware of the one who is breathing and the one who is having thoughts about the one who is breathing. This helps widen your perception and allows you to access thoughts and ideas of a more expansive nature. The broader your view, the more clearly you are able to make informed, appropriate decisions that affect your life and your future. And when you begin to take delight in making good decisions, you'll make more and more of them and your life will become more of what you always wanted it to be. Remind yourself often what it is you want, and why you want it. Focus more of your time and talk on what good things are happening to you and happening to those around you. The natural result will be more of the same and as you begin to dream bigger, you'll begin getting even bigger results.