Horizons Magazine

Andrea de Michaelis, Publisher
Photo taken 2005

If you'd like to say thanks, 
we appreciate your donations

$3 helps * $5 helps * $10 helps

JULY 2005
Watching out for the clues, Handling momentum from your past, Do the inner work and the outer circumstanes will change, Repeating your sob story to others only helps keep you in it, Cheerlead others toward their goals

Hello and welcome to the July 2005 issue. Fireworks, 4th of July and all that - is it HOT enough for you yet?? We've had some serious thunderstorms so far this summer, and the media has been hyping the hurricane season, spooking the tv watchers into shopping en masse to prepare for it. Many of us have just recently gotten our roofs replaced and other work completed from the damage caused by last year's storms. We don't feel ready for another hurricane season quite yet. Some may still feel a little fragile and vulnerable. I've found, though, as I go through life, that my biggest personal storms seem to come very unexpectedly, yet I always make it through them and become stronger than I was before. Also, if I am honest with myself, none of them should have been "unexpected" and there were always good clues all along the way. Some of these clues I saw and didn't pay attention to. I didn't know they were clues, and they didn't seem related, so I passed them by. Some of these clues were very obvious, yet they were not pointing me toward where I thought I wanted to go, so I ignored them, too.

As with the hurricane season, we can take some very basic steps to ward off potential future damage, just by being mindful and paying attention to what is happening around us. I learned last year that if I board my windows up as a storm approaches, I can feel nice and cozy inside and not have to worry about flying debris coming in at me. No, I don't like living in a house with no sunlight until the storms pass, but it beats the alternative: me being huddled inside wondering if I am safe.

The time to prepare to board your windows up is long before you need to. Have everything you need ready to go, and know where it all is. The time to start looking for plywood or shutters is not when the storm is 24 hours away. The time to look for your screwdrivers and ladders and stuff is not when the wind is 50mph outside and it's raining. The time to ask for help is not when everyone you know is unavailable because they are boarding up their own houses. Yet we all know people like that, who wait until the last minute. They had access to just as much advance warning as you did, but they chose not to heed it. They pretended not to see the clues along the way. Maybe they saw the clues and just ignored them, because the clues said "a storm is approaching, be prepared" and they didn't want a storm to come their way. Maybe they "think positive thoughts" and think they just won't attract any property damage. I consider myself a champion optimist. I know I have the thought power and discipline to create all sorts of wonderful experiences, and I do it on an ongoing basis. I also know that to the extent I interact with others, and to the extent I allow my consciousness and state of mind to be affected by these others, to that extent will I reap the consequences of whatever those thoughts might be.

I know there may still be momentum from things in the past that can show up and affect me now. I know that the time to do my "I'm healthy and happy and make good choices" affirmation is NOT when I've just fallen off a 30 story building. Now, If I'd been doing it that affirmation beforehand, it's unlikely that I would have ended up on the roof in the first place. I would have been guided toward clues that would have led me along a different pathway, one that did not end up on a slippery 30 foot tall roof.

I've been talking with a new client who is undergoing some challenges that are clearly the result of momentum from the past. Diana, who lives in Seattle, is a very spiritual person who is learning a little more about how we attract things into our life, and how we can choose what we want to attract. In the course of our first conversations, she told me her situation, which was that a former partner, Steve, had falsified legal documents and stolen a boat and a trailer from her. They jointly owned a home, that was now in Steve's name alone. The same week she's negotiating with Steve's attorney about the home, she finds out where the boat is when she gets a call from the marina stating she has to get the boat out now, yet she can't move it until the falsified documents matter is cleared up.
I agree she has some serious challenges going on right now, and my job is to help her navigate her way through it, and help her hold the vision for what she wanted. It's a task that is not real easy because of the past momentum involved, but not difficult to someone who applies steady, focused thought power toward what they want their result to be. And that's the problem. She was in an emotionally charged state and unable to keep her attention on what she wanted. She had so much anger toward Steve and the situation that she was unable to stop her mental self talk on the problem. And every detail of the problem. She went over it in her mind, again and again and again. She would bring it up even when we were talking on unrelated matters. To top it all off, then her car broke down! Talk about creating the downward spiral! I was glad she called me when she did.

She's given me permission to share our emails with you. In this series of emails, I guided her through a process for changing her perception and looking deeper into all the "clues" in order to overcome her situation. Within about a week, her situation began to turn around.

Andrea: Diana, Hi, sorry you had such vehicle problems... but it's never about the car, is it? Well, at least you knew to be prepared for your world to change when you first wrote me. Ok, the word to contemplate for today is TRANSPORTATION. Give it a good 10 minutes. Maybe you've been getting tired of the old back and forth anyway and were thinking you were ready to be transported into a more satisfying venue. Maybe it's just symbolic of you shedding the remaining vestiges of an old skin as you grow into the new. Or maybe just your car broke down :)"

Diana: "and sometimes a cigar is just a cigar." At one point she responded to a comment with "Hm... I could have done without knowing that. Sounds like everything my father ever said about me. Sigh."

Andrea: "With all due respect, jeez, will you get over that already? You're how old? He's been dead how long? People/parents goof up. We get over it and we get on with it." So she hasn't mentioned that again *smile*

Diana: I've attached a photo of the house I am being swindled out of. I know I shouldn't say swindled, but what would be a more spiritual term? The way I see it (and I am open to growth), this person stole roughly $250,000 from me. I know that I invited him into my life, but I did not invite him to steal!

Andrea: We all need reminders now and then of what we know. Just remember that every time you think of being swindled and talk about being swindled, you are pre-paving your future experience for just that. You think and speak and the Universe hears "swindled, cheated, not treated well" and writes your order down and delivers you as much as It can, as fast as It can.

This isn't about speaking in "more spiritual terms." You are speaking about how you see it, which shows me what your perception is. It shows me what your belief is on that topic. Yes, I understand you are "just telling me the situation."

What I have learned is:
I don't have to tell anyone about the situation, meaning I don't have to voice something, if it is not something I want to experience more of in my life. I know that by voicing it, I am giving it power and calling it to me. I know that by thinking it, I am giving it power and calling it to me. I know that by thinking it, that means I am attached to the thinking of that thought. Maybe you're still in the stage where the thinking of the thought and the voicing of the situation feels like something that, when done enough times, makes you feel vindicated. So when will that be enough? Can you think and say it 12 times and be done with it? Or does 200 times feel better? Do you really want to keep paying that much attention to it for so long? Aren't you ready to move up and on? Sure you are.

It's not about the dollar amount or extent of the wrongdoing. If you do the inner work, the outer situation will resolve itself fairly and quickly. You're not asking, but if it were me, I'd bring the situation to my mind and remind myself that it's never about what I think it is about. It's always about the inner work; it's never about the outer playing out of events. That's just how the lesson is showing up for me, how it is manifesting itself in my life, to get my attention. It doesn't matter how many times I "fail" to learn the lesson, it will just keep showing up until I "get it".

As soon as I can detach emotionally enough from the situation to remember it's a lesson and not be caught up in the illusion of what it appears to be, then I can call upon my discipline and training to make myself as receptive as possible to "getting" the lesson once and for all, so I can move on to more fun and prosperous times.

To make myself as receptive as possible, I will entertain thoughts and ideas that may seem far fetched, but for the purpose of this exercise I will consider that, on some level, even if only for this exercise, they may be true.

Some of these thoughts for me might go like this:
Just like Steve, in my unconscious past, I had deceived and stolen. Just like Steve, I have "swindled" someone out of what was rightfully theirs. Even if I have since made amends to the parties, I know that the reason I was deceitful was because I felt that it was the only way to be compensated for a wrongdoing that I perceived. It was the way to get back what I perceived that I was "owed" by the other.

If the money didn't matter, would I pursue the matter? If I won the gazillion dollar lotto tomorrow, would I pursue this matter? Sure, I want to teach Steve a lesson and if I let him off the hook that easily, I would not feel vindicated. I want him to admit what he did to me and apologize and compensate me for it.

But then I remember that it's not my job to make Steve get the lesson that he just can't swindle me out of my stuff and get away with it. It's not my job to police what he does or who he swindles. Even if the victim is me.

I can ask heartfelt forgiveness for anyone I'd harmed in the past or may have harmed without knowing. I would ask for guidance in this situation, and I would ask that the pain be taken from my heart. I'd ask that I be able to sincerely bless Steve for bringing this lesson to me and enabling me to deepen my practice and bring myself into closer alignment with who I am and who I want to be.

I'd ask that my eyes be opened and my vision be cleared to reveal the matter as it really is. I know that once my perception is clear, there will be no problem and there will be no resentment and there will be no swindling and everyone will feel ultimately compensated as the matter resolves itself.

If the money didn't matter, would I bless him and let him go on his way? He knows what he's done. I know what he's done. No matter what he says to me or to anyone or in legal papers, he knows the extent of her deceit and theft. No matter what I say to him or anyone or in legal papers, I know the extent of any involvement I might have had. None of this matters.

What matters is that I realize that there is something from my past that finally reached enough momentum to create this scene playing out in my life right now. And that on some level, using the broadest definitions, I recognize my part or my responsibility in this scenario or a previous one similar to it.

What matters is that I come to a place emotionally and psychologically where I can feel that I can release Steve from obligation and resolve to let the Universe give him his "punishment" at a later date. And I don't have to be around to see him get it. I have to just release it and bless him and be willing to go on my way.

What matters is that you find something in the future to turn your mind to. As soon as you find another focus, that whole action will begin to untangle itself. Bless it as another lesson and one that will make a great story a few years from now. That's the end of your old life anyway. The best is yet to be :)

Diana: Andrea, what would you do if you received a certified letter from an attorney telling you that you had to be out of YOUR home on June 30th because someone else owned it (this happened to me), what would you do? Probably check with the clerk's office to make sure that your name was still on the recorded deed. But, if it had been changed and HIS name was on your deed and HE owned your home as far at the government was concerned and his attorney was evicting you, what would YOU do, Andrea?
I put $25,000 down on it in 2001 and made payments on it for four and a half years and planted trees, some of which are now over 20-feet tall.... What WOULD you do, in the temporal world, Andrea, if you opened the mail this afternoon and discovered that you no longer owned your home and were in fact being evicted from it?

I was surprised at her quick response even after my telling her in detail exactly how she was mis-creating and prepaving a future she was not going to be happy with. She clearly just glanced at my words and didn't give them much thought. A typical response from someone who doesn't know how they create and attract circumstances and events into their experience. In response to her question What WOULD you do, in the temporal world, Andrea, if you opened the mail this afternoon and discovered that you no longer owned your home and were in fact being evicted from it?
Andrea: I would know that there was somewhere else I was supposed to be instead and that if I listened closely enough and released my attachment to what I thought I had, that it would be fairly and quickly resolved. That doesn't mean I wouldn't file suit against Steve, I would do whatever was in my power to do legally, PLUS I would begin contemplating it deeply as soon as I could talk myself out of the blame and resentment stage. I am not saying that you're lingering in the blame and resentment stage, I just know it's ALWAYS about the inner work. As soon as you can see the situation clearly, the outer circumstances will resolve themselves quickly.

Do you believe God has power over all situations? I do. My experience has been that to the extent I believe that God has the power to enable me to prevail in a given situation, to that extent will I prevail. If you believe the attorneys and the court system are "in charge" - despite God's grace and power - to that extent are you at their mercy, and to that extent will they prevail. To the extent of YOUR belief in THEIR power over you, to that extent do you empower them. Do you think for a moment that any Man can, say, put you in jail if God doesn't want you to be there? And if God wants someone in prison, will Man - the attorneys, the court system - be able to keep him out? What do you believe? Is it a yes or no? Is God the boss over some areas and not others?

To the extent you believe in the power of Man, whose breath is in his nostrils, to that extent will you be governed by Man, and be limited to Man's laws and Man's power. To the extent you believe in the power of God, who provides every bite and breath that Man receives, to that extent will you be governed by God, who will guide you in your physical plane, 3-D happenings.

So who do you choose as your pilot? The best airplane/jet navigator pilot who ever lived, or God? Who would be the best choice, say, for a divorce attorney? Would you rather hire Marvin Mitchelson, known for winning most of his palimony and divorce cases? Or would you hire God? Which of those would you rather have an "in" with during that physical plane, 3-D divorce?

So who do you think has the greatest power over this - or any - situation you're going through? God or anyone else? God or anything else?

I had a former business partner named Steven G. Smith in the 90's, and when he stole our local collection business right out from under me - he took forged signature cards to the bank and opened a new account without me, withdrawing all our joint funds, and he moved - not copied - moved files out of my computer, collection files and forms that I had long before I met him, so I could not even contact the clients, nor practice the collection business, without those files. In his mind, he did these things to protect himself because he felt very insecure and jealous. I had another source of income, working at the law office where I met him. He had no other income, and he felt entitled to more than the share he was getting. He felt justified in doing what he did. He felt slighted by me or resented me for whatever reason and this was the only way he felt he could be vindicated.

So, knowing that, knowing that he has such limited vision that he doesn't believe he can create a good living on his own, that he feels he has to lie and steal and cheat in order to get by and to get what is due to him, my heart opens to him and I no longer see him as a thief and a cheat and a betrayer. I see him as a young, naive, ignorant child of God that is making his way, fighting to survive because he can't feel God's grace falling around him. When my heart and Eye (I) is open to him, I could no more think of him as a thief, or call him a thief, as I could condemn my mother's soul to everlasting damnation.

When I see him clearly for what he is, Jesus in disguise - do you love me now? - then my Eye is open and I am in that place where magic happens. I am in that place where everything stands revealed to me, as a view from above, from the higher perspective. Once my heart is open, I can more easily see the bigger picture and that enables me to navigate the narrow way before me, because I've seen how the road goes and where it ends up. Once I've had that higher glimpse, it's easy to put foot before foot, and take step after step on what I formerly thought of as a boring and uneventful path. It all takes on new meaning and I recognize everyone's part in the drama and the "problem" of it all seems of such little significance now.

My biggest job is to release any idea of what I think I know about how anything works. To continually ask, "What next?" What next?" To ask at every step: "This way? Or that?" To ask at every step that my perception be corrected and my Eye be opened.

I personally also add "Guide me to do Your will and give me strength to bear Your will," but then I'm a martyr :) I have learned though, that when that mantra begins to repeat itself in my head, that I have some good challenges coming up - but no worry, because I will get what I need to get through it at every juncture.

Like, for instance, the Universe giving me a new boyfriend just before my mother died, and he and I went on an 8 month adventure immediately after, to California where I'd never been before. The sorrow and grief shared space with the feeling of being infatuated with a new man and the fun of being on a new adventure. For 8 months after my mom died, I was seeing sights I'd never seen before and doing things I'd never done before, which was a blessing to keep me from feeling lonely and missing my mom since we'd been so close. I had known for several years that we survive physical death, but I had worried that I might forget what I knew when it came to my own Mother.

By that time, I'd lost 3 husbands, my father, 3 brothers, and several friends had died also, so I was no stranger to death. But I also know how emotion can cloud perception and I automatically thought I'd be a big crybaby when mom went, yet it doesn't feel as though she's gone even now *she's not* My intention in telling you this is to let you know that a giant benefit of spiritual practice is evident when you undergo trying times. Sure, you have to go through what you have to go through, but you can have peace of mind along with it, and understand it. My intention is also to offer words of encouragement to you and to suggest techniques that I've had so much success with. I know any 'technique' will work if I'm doing it with the right mindset. And I know it's my work to get my mind to a place where it's receptive, past the anger and judgment, past the feeling of betrayal and resentment.

I'm not saying you should begin going around saying you forgive Steve and you know it's for the best and you know you're on your way to your next good thing. Unless you really feel that way. When people say that and think they are "thinking positively" and "being positive", that is not what is happening if they do not believe it. If they believe it intellectually, and just are not yet in the feeling place of it, where they feel it is true, then the saying of it can act as an affirmation.

If every time I repeat an affirmation and then have the thought "that's not true" or "that's not true yet", then that is not acting as an affirmation and I need to rephrase it. People who think affirmations don't work are just people who don't know how to phrase them, because they don't know how they work.

The problem is not when I don't know something - the problem is when I think I know something but what I know is not accurate, or is contrary to how things actually work.

Diana: I am not sure how I can tell you about my day since only positive terminology is allowed. Was told my car was finished. I drove all the way to Lake Worth, turned in my rental car, and got a ride to the repair shop. Paid the $1,200 I owed them. Drove to 45th Street in WPB and the car overheated. Tow truck hauled me back to garage in Lake Worth. Decided it's a blown headgasket. Another $1,000...

So once again, Diana was not giving much attention to suggestions that could be helpful, she was very much entangled in wanting to tell me her sob story over and over. I just refuse to join in with people while they mis-create. And that's why they pay me the big bucks (smile), so I can show them where they mis-create. And if they are serious about improving the quality of their life, they will pay a little attention, so they learn how to do less mis-creating and more conscious creating.

Andrea: I understand you are having a hard time right now. I understand this is not how things always are with you. I understand you have momentum from past events that have to play themselves out right now. I'm sure that's why we met right now, so you could have a travel partner on this part of the journey where it feels the world is being yanked out from under you, and you're toppling into nothingness. I've got your arm, sister! I'm right here with you.

That support may not be showing up for you exactly as you might have hoped. I'm trying to tell you that by repeatedly telling me your story, you are giving it more power to make you even more upset than you are now at it. But you're not hearing me, or you wouldn't continue to do it. If you're hearing me, you clearly don't understanding what I mean. You may think you understand, but if you're having this big a struggle (and I agree this is a serious physical plane, 3-D situation) and you're continuing to keep mentioning the details to me, then you do not "get it".

As soon as you "get it", you will catch yourself each time you begin to talk about this problem situation of yours. As soon as you "get it", you will realize that talking about the problem - or any problem - is the tether that keeps you anchored to ongoing problems. When you complain, you literally become a magnet for more problems.

I know you are not aware of how you are coming across. When I hear you say the words and talk about your situation, I hear such venom. You are good at quickly realizing how you might sound, and pivoting your words to then 'say something positive' about it, but how you come across vibrationally and non-physically doesn't change. That quick-switch just makes you sound superficial and insincere.

You are coming across as someone who already thinks she knows how something works, so she won't try it any other way, even though her way is clearly not working. I know this is not who you really are, and this is just a stressful, emotionally clouded time for you.

Our last two days' talks I feel have been like when you've got the hose turned on full force and you're trying to connect it to the sprinkler and you're splashing water all over the place and getting everything all soaking wet and you're mad that you can't control it and you're fighting with everyone around because everything is getting all wet and ruined. And I'm trying to tell you to turn off the hose and make the connection first, and you keep telling me you can't because everything is all wet, and you can't because the hose won't stop spewing water, and you can't because well, you get the picture. This is just my impression.

I always welcome my friends - or anyone - to notice and call me on my stuff when I don't know I'm in it, so that is all I am hoping to do for you. Not to just point out shortcomings and make criticisms, that is not what this is about. This is about realizing that you are at a crucial point in your life, and your karmic evolution and in the midst of a giant "test". I'm just trying to sneak you some notes to help you pass the test is all.

HAPPY ENDING: A week later, Diana saw evidence of passing her test, when her situation began to turn around for her.
Sometimes, all we need is for a friend to kind of cheerlead us along the way and inspire us to dig deep and do what needs to be done. And that's my goal each month with Horizons Magazine. Enjoy our offering this month. Hari Om.