Year: 2016

Week 17 – Gal In the Glass Puzzle

The Gal in the Glass troubles me. I know the essence — in the end, it comes down to can you look yourself in the eye and know you did the right things. No short cuts. No deceiving the world, but more importantly, no deceiving yourself. Sure. It’s easy to be swayed by the people supposedly closest to you — parents, spouses, significant others, but how do you feel about yourself? Are you satisfied. Did you do what was right for you?

I know I need to use the Law of Dual Thought on this one, but I haven’t found the best way to do it. I have not been able to read this poem without coming to the end and thinking “Joe Paterno.” I am not pleased by this thought. I read “You may be like Jack Horner and ‘chisel’ a plum, And think you’re a wonderful gal.” and wind up wondering why it’s accusing me of wrongdoing.

I can look the gal in the glass straight in the eye. I have no problem doing this. I have no problem saying, “I love you, Jean Schara.” Yeah, it sort of feels weird, but I can say it, and I can look myself in the eye when I do it. Yes, there are areas of continuous improvement where I believe I’m not up to snuff  (make healthy choices 24-7, anyone?), but are those the reasons why these thoughts come across my mind as I read this poem, or it is something else?

What is wrong with me that this poem annoys me? Why have I not been able to find a mechanism to come to whatever terms are necessary for it not to annoy me?  I find it more and more annoying to have to read it every night. Is it just me? As I mentioned in a comment on another post, I know I’m unique, but I’m not that unique.

Everything about this course has worked very well. After my initial resistance, when I had it, I got into the flow. I liked the idea of this poem when it was introduced, but it has become a burden, and I’m not understanding why. Does anyone have any insight to share?

Week 16 – Attentiveness

Attentiveness has been on my mind lately. Attention. When I’m not paying attention, I get caught by surprise, and I tend to respond poorly. Most of the disagreements my husband and I have are a result of inattention. Either he’s thinking of something else when I say something, and I get upset because something perfectly obvious to me catches him off guard and he doesn’t have a clue where I’m coming from or vice versa. This has always bugged me, and over the last day or so I’ve figured it out. Well, at least the cause. I’m not sure I have the solution yet, but we’ve been made aware of it in the class weeks ago with the Laws of Giving card.

I promise to be a grateful receiver of the gifts that surround me, noticing nature, kindnesses, smiles and compliments, which I gladly receive with a “thank you.”

Yes, we’re supposed to have been noticing. I’ve been attentive to all those things for months now. Am I the only one who has been waiting for that knowledge to apply itself? I don’t think so, because I saw a post in the Kindnesses area tonight that said something similar. And I haven’t been entirely passive in this. I have been paying closer attention to nature.

My husband was serving dinner tonight when 7 pm rolled around.  TNT’s broadcast of the Spurs – Cavaliers game was coming on, but I was thinking about something else (The Spurs is about the only thing I watch on television), and he said, “245.” Startled, I asked, “What does that mean?” He seemed angry, and he said something to the effect of, “Forget about it, then.” I had to sit there and think for several minutes trying to figure out what 245 meant that I should know. Finally, it dawned on me that must be the channel number for TNT on DirecTV.

I wasn’t thinking about what he was thinking about, but he thought I would be, because he detests sports and only tunes to the games for my benefit. Naturally, when I wasn’t on the same wavelength, he was upset. And, of course, he was doing me a kindness, and I didn’t recognize it. (I’m not a mind reader, but I do try.) I also get upset when he isn’t reading my mind either, but it’s not so much mind reading, it’s paying attention to what the other person is doing before we speak and expect them to know where we’re coming from in our conversation.

I’d love to be able to have a spontaneous and harmonious conversation with my husband, but, like the Sit, the Blueprint, and so many other things we’re working on, spontaneity takes practice to carry off harmoniously. I’m going to have to train myself to pause before speaking and make sure the elements of communication are in place before I do so. After some practice with this, perhaps it will become second nature.

Week 16 – Master Key-Og Power

At first, the Master Keys seemed boring and tedious to read. Now, I’m seeing their power. The effect has been cumulative. And I’m thrilled for a completely non-MKMMA reason as well. One thing I’ve wanted to do but never felt like I did “right” was meditate. I already knew there was not a prescribed method for it, but it still didn’t seem to be beneficial in any practical way. As a result of this course, even though I’m disappointed in how effectively I conduct my Sits to date, I’ve still gained at least one instance of BAM! insight, and I’m confident I’ll improve my ease with the process enough to achieve much more insight in the days, months, and years to come. That instance of BAM! insight? I can understand why people say they’ve heard the voice of God, because that’s exactly what it was like.

The Master Keys have shown the way, and each week, we’re led a little closer to being more effective at visualizing our new reality. 16-28 is particularly powerful for me this week: “If you desire to visualize a different environment, the process is simply to hold the ideal in mind, until your vision has been made real; give no thought to persons, places or things; these have no place in the absolute; the environment you desire will contain everything necessary; the right persons, and the right things will come at the right time and in the right place.”

This month’s scroll has so much power, but I’m going to focus on a little piece that I don’t think gets much attention. “And nature knows not defeat. Eventually, she emerges victorious and so will I, and with each victory the next struggle becomes less difficult.” Nature always wins. I may take centuries, but Nature wins. We persist, and we win. We are nature’s greatest miracle.

Gimme the Keys!

 

Week 15 – It’s the Law

Let’s take another look at some of the Seven Laws of the Mind. I feel as if I’ve been making good progress with the Law of Growth — what I think about grows, what I forget….what was that? Great help for the 7 Day Mental Diet. I keep reading over The Law of Dual Thought and thinking, this is so cool. I can apply any feeling I want to any thought. It’s my choice. I want to get better at this. The best example I have of doing this is being irritated at my husband for calling me while I was visiting my parents in October and doing nothing but complain. I finally realized, “He misses me.” He was also sick and miserable. But “he misses me” was a lot more positive than “why does he keep calling, there’s nothing I can do about the problem he’s complaining about.” This is a law I don’t feel I’m applying as often as I can to make it helpful and useful. For instance, if I’m rolling my eyes or feeling a surge of irritation, that’s probably a good indicator that I’m in a “Law of Dual Thought” or, maybe even a “Law of Substitution” moment. Identifying these moments and deciding upon a more positive substitution or replacement thought more quickly is going to improve my overall effectiveness.

These mental gymnastics are strongly in the realm of exercising the “Law of Practice.” The more practice I get with applying these laws (because we all know “knowledge will not apply itself”), the closer I can get to being able to apply the Law of Relaxation more and more often, thus releasing my access to infinite intelligence. I love being in the flow of that. Keep up the good work, Subby.

 

Week 15 – Insight

Let’s talk about insight. I looked at the Master Keys before this course began. It’s a free download from Amazon, you know. I hadn’t picked up on Og Mandino as a course material, but I saw something about the Master Keys, and I’d heard something about Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich. Heck, I can read. I could do this stuff myself. I didn’t have to pay big bucks from someone to teach me. Yeah, I know they said the course was free with a “Pay-It-Forward” scholarship, but I knew at some point, I’d be asked to pay it forward or leave. And how much would they want me to pay forward? I didn’t like the secretiveness of that. But I’d known the person I was following who was recommending the course for many years (electronically — we’ve not met in person yet), so I trusted her when she said it wasn’t outrageous. And, please, if you know me at all, you can trust me that if you choose to apply for a scholarship in the next class, you can afford to Pay-It -Forward when they finally get around to asking you to.  And if you’re not willing to do so by the time they ask, you’re not getting value from the course for you anyway, so don’t worry about it.  I poked at the materials, but they didn’t look inspiring. I knew I wouldn’t do it on my own, and the other people going through the the course with me might be useful, so I decided to dive in.

That’s a very long way of saying, I’m finding the Master Keys portion of the course not only intriguing but valuable. Last week, we focused on Harmony. This week, we focus on Insight. We study more about the laws under which we live. In the intro, we learn we “gain strength in proportion to the effort expended, and that our happiness is best attained through a conscious cooperation with natural laws.”

It’s fully within our power to place ourselves in harmony with the laws and experience a life of relative peace and happiness. But if we lack something, we cannot obtain what we need if we cling tenaciously to what we have (15-5). We also must remember that all conditions and experiences come to us for our benefit. (Amazingly, this is fully in line with this month’s Scroll IV, p. 71-72, “…I know a great secret of life for I perceive, at last, that all my problems, discouragements, and heartaches are, in truth, great opportunities in disguise.”

It’s both troubling and freeing to realize that everything we experience happens for a reason. For the Biblical scholars, think Ecclesiastes. It’s challenging to realize these things are for our BENEFIT, especially when we are in the midst of whatever it may be.

We reap what we sow, painful as that may be to digest. But we can change what we sow. 15-10 says, “In order to possess vitality thought must be impregnated with love. Love is a product of emotions. It is therefore essential that the emotions be controlled and guided by the intellect and reason.”

A few paragraphs later, we are reminded if we want desirable conditions, we can only afford to entertain desirable thoughts.

This is why I took this course, and I have to attest these statements are true. I was thinking undesirable thoughts about my husband, and it wasn’t helping our marriage. My husband loves me. He’d been making every effort to address my concerns, yet I was still unhappy with him. The more unhappy I became with him, the worse I thought of him. He was the same guy he always was — the guy I was very happy to marry. I was thinking differently about him. Through applying the insights gained from this course, I’m happy to say I’m thinking mostly happy thoughts about him now, and I’m chasing the less than happy thoughts away quickly.

We must use the insight we’ve gained to ensure the thoughts we entertain contain no mental, moral, or physical germ which we do not wish to have objectified into our lives.

Week 14- Harmony

Harmony is a blend of essential oils. I was preparing to diffuse Harmony this afternoon, so I was transferring the oil from it’s storage bottle to the bottle with a wick that goes into my USB diffuser for use on my desktop.

I spilled some into a circle about the size of a quarter onto my desk blotter. I blotted it with my hands and a tissue. I’m thankful the scent is a gentle one and not overpowering. I think I have been feeling more harmonious since the spill.

A nice essential oil blend is helpful, but there’s more to harmony that simply breathing in a complex blend of oils. In fact, Haanel’s lesson this week is particularly emphatic about this. I’m heartened and chastened as I read 14-26.

But the thought must be clear cut, steady, fixed, definite, unchangeable; you cannot take one step forward and two steps backward, neither can you spend twenty or thirty years of your life building up negative conditions as the result of negative thinking, and then expect to see them all melt away as the result of fifteen or twenty minutes of right thinking.

Drat. Would that it be true. But alas. This is so encouraging, right? I’ve had 55 years to build up negative thinking patterns. I’ve had bursts of attempts at positiveness, but I’ve had far more negative than positives in the long run. Of course it’s going to take a little time to turn this ship around.

The intro to this week reminds us that a weed remains visible even after it’s roots have been severed. So, too, are our negative tendencies. We’re going to need have a few more sessions to eradicate this garden of weeds we’ve sown during our lifetime. But I can see them fading away. I can SEE the way to make them go away.

14-30 says, “Your world without will be a reflection of your world within.” My world within is getting much better.  14-29 says, “If you wish harmonious conditions in your life, you must develop an harmonious mental attitude.”

Spilling a little Harmony goes a long way to helping that. Besides, I’m nature’s greatest miracle. How cool is that? And you are, too! Even better.

harmony