Author: Jean

Week 43/44 – Sneaky Week

Did last week sneak by me? I believe it did! After my vacation for knee recovery, I’ve been busy living life, and that’s a wonderful thing. I loved that my mental acuity remained with me after this surgery. Last year, the post-surgical brain fog was awful. I couldn’t concentrate on anything for any period of time. This year, I was able to read, I did a crochet project, and other things I was too brain-fogged to do after last year’s surgery. I still took lots of naps. The post-surgical fatigue remained, but that’s because my body is using that energy to heal my new knee, and it’s doing a fantastic job of that. I couldn’t be happier to be on the full recovery side of this knee replacement project.

Last year, the new knee felt great, but it quickly grew tired of dragging about the other old, barely functional knee. My surgeon and I were both ecstatic when we finally could get the second knee scheduled for replacement this year. My schedule intervened, then my husband’s health intervened, then I had a scratch on my knee that caused us to delay a week as a precaution to avoid infection, and finally, the knee is done, and I’m recovering.

Last year, I couldn’t walk on the new knee more than 10 minutes. It wasn’t the new knee limiting me. It was the old knee. I couldn’t do stairs normally. It wasn’t the new knee. It was was the old knee. Finally, I’m not dragging around an old knee, and my recovery has been leaps and bounds ahead of last year’s excellent recovery. This is certainly part of realizing my True Health personal pivotal need. I believe it also contributes significantly to my Autonomy personal pivotal need. It’s hard to be autonomous if you can’t maneuver yourself around, right? This also contributes to manifesting my Definite Major Purpose of my body moving with ease.

This afternoon, we have our final continuation webbie. My Mastermind Partner and I are each contemplating where we go from here in integrating everything we’ve learned into our lives going forward. I imagine we’ll at least tune in on the next class in some ways as a reinforcement and refresher — that’s the benefit of the lifetime membership. As we’re reading through the scrolls this month, we’re reminded that the meaning becomes more apparent and deeper when taking into account what we’ve learned after reading the first time and with the experience we’ve gained.

Week 42: Love in Your Heart Reprise

After many months, I return to the Scroll II focus: Greet each day with love in your heart. Believe it or not, I have struggled with this since we started Scroll II. I thought I would figure it out. I finally decided to ask my Mastermind Partner. And you know what? She had a great answer. Why didn’t I ask her sooner? She’s great with stuff like this.

At least I finally asked. I put her technique into practice this morning, and I think it’s going to work. Since I can’t be the only person who simply didn’t get this, I’m going to share what I gleaned from her experience. Maybe someone else who didn’t know to ask will benefit.

One secret to greeting each day with love in my heart — there must be as many ways as there are people, so if you have something that works for you, keep doing it — is to first be grateful I’ve been given another day. Then, I consider the wonderful things in my life. I consider how blessed I am to have been able to retire at a young age and to be able to do so many of the things I want to do. You may laugh, but upon reflection, I realized yard work is part of my bliss. After reflecting upon my many blessings, I consider how I’m going to interact with others in ways that will brighten their day. I’m going to view this as one of my services, and I realize I can make a difference — and I want it to be a positive difference. This aligns with The Laws of Giving, so it’s in harmony. Finally, I focus my approach and attitude to be one of gratitude.

Thank you, my partner, for sharing your wisdom with me.

Week 41: Standing Tall

I’ve been chattering on for the last 40 weeks about the Master Key Experience. Soon, you’ll have the opportunity to get a concise fable about the experience published by Mark Januszewski. He loves giraffes, so you’ll see one on the cover. He talks about acquiring the 13 riches of life effortlessly, and, really, isn’t that what life is all about? Why continue torturing yourself trying to figure it out? The Master Key Experience walks you through the process.

Standing Tall

And he even thought about the kids, because, seriously, if we learned this stuff as kids, by the time were were adults, life would be a breeze.

Joey

Standing Tall goes live on July 26th. Until then, you can get the first six chapter free from me as well the 7-Day Mental Diet and a brief email series about the various effects the Master Key Experience has had upon participants lives. This also gets you on the early notification list for the next course. You don’t want to miss your Pay-It-Forward Scholarship. Get your free chapters here. Joey the Giraffe Stands Call releases shortly after Standing Tall. I nearly forgot, you can get the Kindle version of Standing Tall for 99 cents on pre-order. You can’t go wrong with that!

Week 40 – Ability and Opportunities

What do you feel about your abilities and the opportunities that present themselves in your life? Are the opportunities greater than your abilities or beneath them? What do you ask for when you’re looking for challenges in your life?

The Scroll Marked X covers this. “I ask not for gold or garments or even opportunities equal to my ability; instead, guide me so I may acquire ability equal to my opportunities.”

I don’t know about you, but I usually find opportunities that seem to exceed my abilities, so I if I know I’ll never be given more than I am able to accomplish, then, clearly, I’ll be able to acquire whatever ability I need. If my opportunities seem beneath my abilities? Maybe I don’t have a good grasp of what my abilities truly are.

The key, of course, is to approach each opportunity with our best capabilities, treating it as the most important thing at the time we’re tackling the tasks associated with it.

Week 39: Superior Power

It’s a new month, and we’re on to a new scroll (chapter) in Og Mandino’s The Greatest Salesman in the World. This chapter addresses an age-old concern in the form of the existence of a “superior power.”

As a Christian, I accepted Jesus Christ as my savior many, many years ago. That’s my foundation for looking at the “superior power” window. I’ve accepted there are many interpretations of that same thing. I don’t understand some of them, but I know the terminology may differ to achieve the same ultimate end. This month’s scroll summarizes it for me, and I’m going to quote the part that does.

My life need not be filled with religion in order for me to recognize this greatest mystery of nature. All creatures that walk the earth, including man, possess the instinct to cry for help. Why do we possess this instinct, this gift?

Are not our cries a form of prayer Is it not incomprehensible in a world governed by nature’s laws to give a lamb, or a mule, or a bird, or man the instinct to cry for help lest some great mind has also provided that the cry should be heard by some superior power having the ability to hear and to answer our cry?

That’s enough for me. If there were no superior power, we would not be able to make the cry. Man is creative and creates a lot of answers to this possibility, but at its core, we have the ability to cry for help, so there must be an entity capable of answering that cry.

Week 38 – Pure Thought

No. Your eyes do not deceive you. I am obsessed with thought this summer. Pure thought. I’m still studying James Allen’s As A Man Thinketh. While there is much discussion on what thoughts manifest in our lives, I want to focus on positive manifestations.

On the other hand, beautiful thoughts of all kinds crystalize into habits of grace and kindliness, which solidify into genial and sunny circumstances. Pure thoughts crystalize into habits of temperance and self-control, which solidify into circumstances of repose and peace. Thoughts of courage, self-reliance, and decision crystalize into manly habits, which solidify into circumstances of success, plenty, and freedom. Energetic thoughts crystalize into habits of cleanliness and industry, which solidify into circumstances of pleasantness. Gentle and forgiving thoughts crystalize into habits of gentleness, which solidify into protective and preservative circumstances. Loving and unselfish thoughts which solidify into circumstances of sure and abiding prosperity and true riches.

That paragraph should provide fodder for months of sits. These are the things I want manifested in my life and in the world.

It’s taken many months, but the thoughts I began manifesting last fall that seemed like fiction are more normal and real now. My DMP is reality. Each aspect of it is playing out in my day-to-day life, and it’s everything I’d hoped for and more.

If you’ve been following along and wondering if this can work for you, I emphatically state it can if you do not give up on yourself.

Week 37: Thought

One of the things we’re examining for Continuation is Thought. We’re reading and reflecting on As A Man Thinketh by James Allen. It’s a short twenty-page treatise focusing on “thought and character,” “effect of thought on circumstances,” “effects of thoughts on health and body,” “thought and purpose,” “the thought-factor in achievement,” “visions and ideals,” and “serenity.”

I’ve read the document through a little more than once, but now, I’m beginning to break it down and truly study it for application in my life. We’ve been learning the power of the mind for this entire course, but the intricacies are fascinating. “Man is made or unmade by himself.”

“Just as a gardener cultivates his plot, keeping it free from weeds, and growing the flowers and fruits which he requires so may a man tend the garden of his mind, weeding out all the wrong, useless and impure thoughts, and cultivating toward perfection all the flowers and fruits of right, useful and pure thoughts.” This mental pruning and weeding takes time but is worth the effort.

I’m beginning to see the fruits of my labor in small ways. This is encouraging and inspires me to continue the process. I think I’ve eradicated the biggest and baddest weeds. Now I’m pruning, stopping the regrowth from returning. This, of course, is a life-long process. “Men do not attract what they want but what they are.” I am making sure I AM what I WANT to be.

For now, that means I’m focusing on manifesting my Definite Major Purpose (DMP). The daily read of the Blueprint Builder sets the foundation, the DMP is the framework, and my services and plan of action are the bricks and mortar. The sit helps me check progress and make adjustments along the way.

As a Man…or Woman…Thinketh, so will be his or her life. How are your thoughts? Are you pruning the weeds and encouraging the fruits and flowers? I hope so.

Week 36 – Nimbleness

My knee surgery was delayed because of a small surface scratch in the skin. I originally planned this surgery in April, but health issues with my husband delayed it. His health has resolved enough for me to go ahead, but in the process of getting things prepared around the house and properties for me to be out of commission, I got a touch of poison ivy on my face, then while cutting up a dead tree limb, the limb scratched my right knee perfectly perpendicular to where my incision will be for my joint replacement surgery. 

I saw my surgeon yesterday to get clearance for the poison ivy, and he was immediately more concerned about the scratch. That break in the skin could introduce infection into the new knee, and even possibly to my existing replaced joint in my left leg. Such a little thing could cause big problems. 

Yesterday,  in the office, he was willing to proceed, but this morning, he told me he’d reconsidered and didn’t want to risk it when we didn’t have to. So, this morning was a dry run for next week when the plan is to go forward after the scratch has a chance to heal. 

Acceptance. Responsibility. Defenselessness. 

I’ve been challenged in the past with adapting to change. In today’s sit, the concept of nimbleness came to me. This process is teaching me not only acceptance, responsibility, and defenselessness but mental nimbleness as well. 

Week 35: Pondering Law of Least Effort

The Law of Least Effort keeps tripping me up. Not only that, I have some concerns I haven’t been able to resolve in my mind yet. The Law of Least Effort has three parts — Acceptance, Responsibility, and Defenselessness. My troubles seem to lie in Defenselessness, but I think that’s merely a symptom of challenges I face in the other two areas.

Acceptance. I practice Acceptance. Today I accept people, situations, circumstances, and events as they occur. I know that this moment is as it should be, because the whole universe is as it should be. I do not struggle against the whole universe by struggling against this moment. My acceptance is total and complete. I accept things are they are in this moment, not as I wish they were.

I’ve long believed things happen for a reason, and this supports that. The challenge is accepting things that happen that don’t fit with the way I wanted it to happen. If I understand what we’ve been learning correctly, the universe is what we have collectively manifested from our thoughts, and if we don’t like it, we need to collectively realign our thoughts. Unfortunately, this is largely an individual endeavor, and most do not understand their own power, and thus, fail to harness it. But, for those of us who do understand we can make a difference, we have a charter to make a continuous effort to improve.

Responsibility. Having accepted things are they are, I take Responsibility for my situation and for all those events I see as problems. I know that taking responsibility means not blaming anyone or anything for my situation (and this includes myself). I also know that every problem is an opportunity in disguise, and this alertness to opportunities allows me to take this moment and transform it into a greater benefit.

I find liberation in this one. The phrase “for all those events I see as problems” is liberating. If I don’t want to be responsible? I refuse to see something as a problem. I’m reminded of this on a very low local level at a restaurant we eat breakfast at on weekends. They allow people to put fliers in the windows for all kinds of events, but they purge the outdated fliers infrequently. I catch myself thinking, “They should have someone responsible for periodically purging their windows.” Then I remember, I’m not responsible for this, nor do I want to be, so I remind myself it’s not my problem. Besides. I have many more areas which ARE my problem that need to be taken care of before I worry about someone else’s area of responsibility.

Defenselessness. Today my awareness remains established in Defenselessness. I relinquish the need to defend my point of view. I feel no need to convince or persuade others to accept my point of view. I remain open to all points of view and am not rigidly attached to any one of them.

Defenselessness has been a problem for me, and last night, I think it was again. I sometimes respond to my husband in a way where he says, “I wasn’t attacking you.” Might that mean I was not effectively practicing defenselessness? I’m troubled by these situations, and, perhaps, my approach contributes more to his frustration than I am willing to admit.

The concern I haven’t been able to resolve yet are what if someone is in an abusive relationship? Certainly we wouldn’t expect them to just accept their fate and continue to be abused, would we? Because of that, I believe I’m not interpreting this law effectively. There’s an opportunity with my problems in this area. I’m not clearly identifying the problem or seeing the solution yet.

We have a mastermind for a reason. In this case, my mastermind partner shared thoughts on this subject when we discussed it, and her thoughts, as usual, were right on. She said, “Abuse itself is a situation that has to be dealt with…authorities, walk away, whatever. The person being abused should accept that the abuser is not meant to be part of their life and move forward as a whole, strong, perfect, loving, and harmonious human being. That’s the acceptance part of the situation. They do not need to defend their choice to move on.” That made it so clear to me.

Back my challenges, er, opportunities.

Week 34 – Acting Now

We started a new scroll yesterday, and that’s always an exciting time. While the focus turns out to be “acting now,” this scroll begins on a stunningly dire note. “My dreams are worthless, my plans are dust, my goals are impossible.” What? This whole book has been overwhelmingly positive until now, and we get this huge dose of negative right off the bat? What’s happening? Quite simple, really. “All are of no value unless they are followed by action.”

Oh. Right. Knowledge does not apply itself. Neither do plans, dreams or goals. “I act now.” I’m giving away so many good thoughts with this post, but the next lines are pure gold. “Never has there been a map, however carefully executed to detail and scare, which carried its owner over even one inch of ground. Never has there been a parchment of law, however fair, which prevented one crime.” Plans, dreams, and goals, whether for good or evil, take action to execute.

We need to take charge and begin executing the plan, even if it isn’t perfect. We’ve been saying “Do it now” twenty-five times twice a day since nearly the beginning of the course, and that’s what this scroll is all about. It clearly lays out why action is required. It clearly lays out that action eliminates fear. We’re reminded to be like the firefly whose light only shines while it is in motion. I saw a firefly last night while petting my friendly feral cat.

Our actions may not be completely correct at first, but we learn. We learn by doing.Tomorrow never comes. Do it now.