Choosing to get our creative juices flowing is just that, a choice. A choice to set down that which distracts us and to become mindful of the things we do daily that detours us and keeps us from doing something new, something that expands us verses keeping us in our round hole of numbness. We must choose to become awake and press the edges of our comfort zones to experience life. Have you ever done something so against your norm than when you look back you can say that you were not looking at what the consequences were going to be, but that you were only looking in the moment. That vacation you took with a stranger to a place you never been before, the new restaurants you discovered by saying no to familiarity, the new people you met as well as towns and ultimately your new home because your first choice summer plans were not available and you chose to go where you never went before, all of these caused you chose to live life anew and fresh.

The Lie of Lack:

What about those things you love to do but you don’t give yourself permission to do them. Why? Too busy? Too tired? Feeling that it wouldn’t make a difference? Hogwash!!! We have these desires in our hearts because they are to be acknowledged. They are seeking us and that is why they are there. Too many of us had dreams that were squelched by well-meaning parents in our childhood telling us to be more realistic, or by folks that didn’t know how to encourage the creative, expressive, powerful thinkers that we came into this world to be. By our thoughts and beliefs, we can stir up creative ideas and work them into our reality as long as we don’t believe the lies of lack!!! You know what those sound like. “There is not enough time,” “I don’t have enough money,” or “People like me don’t have many options.” These are road blocks to your success and by success, I mean the movement forward into the life you desire. Nothing stands in your way more than your belief in lack. Your thoughts are powerful and when you choose to focus on something, you will notice more of that in your life. You will notice it in the news, you will see it as you are driving down the road, you will hear more of it in the conversations around you. You will even say, “see it is true!” it is true because you make it true, because you have believed in it and bought into it as many others have and the group mind gets swallowed up in believing this is how it is.

How to Start:

Start thinking about what you desire not what you don’t like. Not what makes you upset. Not that which presses itself in our news feeds. What is it you want to do? Stir yourself up and spend 10 to 20 minutes each day writing about it. Diagramming what it will look like, feeling how you would feel as it manifests into form. Sense that, dare to taste it, and then act as if! Act as if it is around the corner and you are doing what you need to do to be a part of it. Your dreams need your action. What can you do each day to take you closer to what you really want to do? Knock on all the doors, not just those that you think you should knock on. Be led by your intuition, that inner guidance you were born with. It can lead you to someone who will share a tidbit of information that is key to your next perfect step. Observe, listen, journal, vision, and share with like-minded people along your path. This will expand your dream! Keep working and take that 10 to 20 minutes a day to see what your next step is. Make a vision board, go to that store downtown that draws you in and shows you things that you need to know. Write that blog, start that YouTube channel, create that book club and see where this leads you. The next step will always show itself. If you are feeling fear, good. That lets you know that you are pressing up against that edge that you have been staying on the safe side far too long. Push through it and fling open that fake locked door that has prevented you from moving forward. You know that locked door I am talking about. A belief, a lie, and even a disability. Push through it. This world has many movers and shakers that have turned their lives around because they were tired of living small, tired of living like a victim of circumstances. Your thoughts and beliefs and desires are SO MUCH MORE POWERFUL than any news story or statistic. Choose to live your life the way you want to live it. Start today and write down what you love, what you want to do, and bash down the walls of doubt and lies. Choose to be who you came into this world to be. If we all do this, imagine what that energy could do and the true freedom it can create!

Final Thought

What stops you from doing something you want to happen in your life? Belief. Belief that it is too hard, too complicated, too expensive, too painful, too boring. Want to be healthier? Choose something today that emphasizes that. Tell your life that you want to be healthier by doing something that proves it. Take a 30-minute walk. Floss your teeth. Drink two extra glasses of water during the day. The action you take moves the energy in you and around you and opens a door to more. What to write? Write for 10 minutes a day even if no one else sees it. Want to move to a new place but you have no clue as to when, where, or the means? Don’t focus on that! Focus on the desire to move and start clearing the clutter; giving away the stuff that you don’t use that is using up precious space and energy. Want more friends in your life?  Think of ways you can be a friend. Volunteer at an animal shelter or a hospice store. Unplug from the activities, or the lack of activity, that keeps you from your fabulous expansion. Want to be more tuned in to your intuition. Start meditating 10 minutes a day… even five minutes twice a day begins the process. There are so many ways we can choose to make movement in our lives. The key is to believe you have the power to do so and it is crucial to change the thought you have been saying over and over that is contrary to what you really want out of life. State what you want to experience and do something each day to make it so. Life is for you. Life is a force of energy that is activated by your thoughts. Your beliefs are just thoughts that have been thought about over and over. Your beliefs can be changed by changing your thoughts. Then as we put action into it, we generate the power we that changes our lives.

If you think your consistent thoughts are not powerful and can’t change your daily experience, just experiment and choose to focus on negative things for 10 minutes straight after you wake up and then go and try to have a peaceful morning. Now, take those same 10 minutes and think of those things that please you. Your favorite place to visit, your grandchildren’s smiles and giggles, the person that you love and the things they do that makes you feel love and goodness, your puppy or cat, your favorite food, or something else that really excites you. See yourself in the midst of this for 10 minutes. Feel the smile, feel the joy you experienced and experience it again. Ok, the 10 minutes are up and you open your eyes and move from the place you were sitting while thinking of these beautiful things and you enter into your day with that energy inside of you. That power of goodness feels a heck of a lot better than 10 minutes of thinking negatively. It is time to consciously to change our lives and focus on that which we love. Doing what we love is NOT a waste of time. It opens the chasm for more to spew out, gushing into where it has longed to be, transforming you into the beautiful being you were meant to be, that which you planned to be. It has been seeking you. Open yourself to it! Don’t tell me to be realistic! Don’t tell me to take off my rose-colored glasses. I have seen what happens when I change the way I look at things, when I choose to think differently than those around me. I have experienced what it is like to stop blaming someone else, or some group of people for my lack of happiness. Blaming gives away my power. You are 100% responsible for how you feel right now. You can always… ALWAYS choose a better thought and that changes the way you feel. I am not saying that if you are in despair to try and feel joyous and exuberant. But you can try and choose to feel angry instead of despair. If you feel bored, you can choose to think something that makes you more hopeful or inspired. It takes some effort, but if you can, each day, catch yourself in a negative thought and think of a better thought, you gain the wisdom of what it is to change your immediate world. And that is what I desire for you at the end of 2018. That you can make a difference in your life and you do not have to wait for someone or something to happen before you can be happy.

I am creating some new journals this week and calling them “books of positive thought.” Should one get stuck in a thought that takes them away from what they want to feel, they can open this journal and start writing down what they like about a person or situation verses thinking about what they don’t like. If something positive cannot be written about the person or a situation, just change subjects and start writing a list of things you like and love about something else. The idea is to change your thinking before it starts making you feel less than you want to feel.

Dr. Edward Viljoen, from the Center for Spiritual Living, Santa Rosa, CA, used to say that our minds should never be left unsupervised. They will go to places that is not for our best interest. Learning this and practicing changing our thoughts and evaluating them early on can save us pain and stress. Stopping the made-up conversations in our minds will extinguish physical stress in our lives just as if it was a real conversation. Our bodies don’t know the difference. Starting this kind of practice can be overwhelming at first for some people but it is of great importance. Maybe you never thought that changing your thoughts can change your life. There are many safe and caring coaches and counselors that can help. If you need a recommendation for someone in your area, I can help. Meanwhile, let’s end this year with a new thought pointing us to how we really want to live our lives. You have it within you. You’ve had the power all along!