SPIRITUAL PROSPERITY

Some people don't really know what it is they want. Many define what they want by stating what they don't want. The result, they get exactly what they don't want. Why because instead of focusing on what they do want they are focused on what they don't want. I recently discovered this while having a disciplinary discussion with our eleven year old daughter. The discussion was about her behavior and why it is wrong. What's funny about this is we had this exact same discussion less than sixty days prior.

During this discussion I realized that my daughter did not think she was doing anything wrong, she believed she was acting according to what was acceptable for an eleven year old. I had to think about this for a bit because she did not understand that it is not ok to misbehave. I got the idea to use an example and ask her what she thought about it.

I said, "A person robs a bank, is caught and goes to jail. As soon as that person gets out they rob another bank is caught and goes to jail again. Gets out robs yet another bank and goes to jail. What do you think about this?" "There's a problem," was her answer. Then I said to her, "You are the person robbing the bank". The look on her face was utter devastation. I then explained to her that when she misbehaves it's like the person robbing the bank. The robber did not want to go to jail but that is what he/she got, exactly what they didn't want. That's what you get every time you misbehave; you get everything that you don't want. The logic was inescapable.

If you focus on the things you don't want, you are going to get what you focus on. Now that might seem like it's backwards but in reality that is exactly what many people do and they don't understand why they continually get the results they get. Your mind attracts to you that which is the center of your focus. If your focus is on what you don't want you will get that which you focus on. While the above example is a bit extreme the point is you attract to you what you think about. My daughter said she was always thinking about not getting into trouble, what did she get?

It is extremely important to be specific about what you want as well. It is not enough to say you want more money; you must be specific about the amount of more money you want. If you make $40,000 a year, your subconscious mind thinks that $40,001 is more money which it is and therefore you have reached your goal. Your efforts to get more fail because you're now thinking I don't want $40,001 I want more. If you want to lose weight, loosing 1 pound to your subconscious mind is achieving your goal, you lost weight.

Now you might be thinking "I want to make more money and in the back of your mind more money means $50,000 a year, but all you say is more money. See the difference? You must be specific and say next year I want to make $50,000 or I want to lose 20 pounds in three months. You must know exactly what it is you want or you will fail to get it.

How to make your dreams a reality.

You must know exactly what it is you want.
You must know every detail, how having what you want will make you feel. What having what you want will do for you, give you more status, more prestige, raise your standard of living. You must know every detail or you will stumble along the way and feel like a failure.

You must have a time frame in mind.
You need to set a date by which you expect to have gained the object of your focus. If you desire to fit those designer jeans by springtime and you need to lose 15 pounds, set a date by which you expect to have lost the weight. Then using a series of smaller goals, affirm to lose 1 to 2 pounds pre week by mapping out a diet to cut out 500 calories a day.

Your desire must be measurable.
First start out with the end result clearly in mind. You should start out with a series of smaller obtainable goals. Success with these smaller goals fuels your confidence towards achieving a larger goal. Then have something to gage your success by. Starting with the end result, work backwards in detail until you get to the starting point where you will set out to achieve you goal. This gives you the exact steps you need to take to achieve your goal. Each step should lead you closer to obtaining your desired result. This becomes your ruler, check to see if you are on course.

Always write out your goals.
Writing your goals out is another way to check if you have strayed from the course. It gives you something to follow. Write your goals out and read them daily. We have billions of thoughts per day and a goal is just another thought. Writing it down helps to keep that thought in mind instead of it being replaced by one of the other billions of thoughts. It also helps with your commitment to your goal. Seeing it daily reaffirms it in your mind.

Get a success partner.
One way to insure success with obtaining any goal is to have a partner. Someone who will encourage you and help you stay on course. It's important to have someone who will stand by you and not someone who will try to discourage you. Champions Evolution is a coaching service that helps people set goals and achieve them. They deal with confidence and self-esteem issues and they show you how to believe you can have what you want.

Evaluate your progress.
Are you making headway? If not, why not? Adjust your plan to meet your long-term goal. Are you meeting your weekly or monthly weight loss goals? If not, determine what might be the problem. Add another half hour of walking each week or cut out second helpings.

Challenge yourself through adversity.
That means work hard, push yourself and feel a little discomfort if it means helping you reach your goals. Understand and acknowledge that change is not easy. If it were, you would have already achieved your goal. We tend to revert to previous behaviors when change gets difficult. Now is the time to develop new life behaviors.

You have a choice in what you get or don't get. You choose to have success or you choose to have failure. There is nothing in between the two except you. What you choose to think about will be what you get. Focus on failure and no amount of effort will bring you the success you desire. The thing to do is focus your mind on success.

Worry is a silent killer.  It is like a slow poison.  It is a chronic illness.  In fact, it is an illness which is many fold dreadful than the physical illnesses.  Worry not only affects our body but our mind too.

If you think seriously, you would find that it is really no use worrying about anything.  It is really foolish to worry about past or future.  Nobody can change the past.  Whatever has happened has happened.  Why worry?  How can something that has yet not come to pass affect us?  How are we so certain that the future is so bleak?  Things may turn out well.  Why worry then?  Worrying just tires us and diminishes our capacity of clear thinking and planning.  It promotes negative thinking.  Instead of worrying we should use positive affirmations and resolutions.

If worry could solve the problem, everybody would worry as much as possible.  Problem solving requires clear thinking and planning.  But worry makes us incapable of clear thinking and planning.  Many things, if they are going to happen, will happen regardless of our worry.   If it is going to rain, it will.

We worry for small things.  The worst-case scenario may not even be bad enough to worry.  You have made your boss angry.  You worry that he may fire you.  What of it?  That is not the end of the world.  You are still alive.  Perhaps you would get a better job.  You dread to go to the office next day.  You think of sending in your resignation letter.  Worrying you reach office.  The boss calls you.  He apologizes.  It was his mistake!

Not only we should not worry about little things, but we should also not worry about seemingly big things. The things that seem today very big and important will seem trifle tomorrow.  In your student life you must have worried for days about the wrong answer you gave, even though you knew the right answer, to an objective type of question carrying just half mark.  How much you worried about a dress on a special occasion, meeting a boy or girl whom you fancied, or the change of residence of a friend’s family?  Do these matter a bit today?  Why worry about spilled milk, or a broken glass, or a missed bus?

Of course, no body worries for the sake of worrying.  Worry just comes into mind and then never leaves.  But many people never worry.  It seems that worrying is a sort of bad habit.   As all bad habits the habit of worrying is also difficult to get rid of.  So, in the first instance, never make worrying a habit.  Secondly, try to divert your mind.  Think of positive things.  Get busy with some physical activity.  Keep yourself away from people who are habitually worrying type and who always see the negative side of a thing.

Instead of useless worrying, one should take positive action—

BE HAPPY!

When you realize that you really want to have an impact in this world, to make a difference, remember that it is in each moment that you are alive and in the present. When you are too busy worrying about what you don't have, what you have to do, where you've been, and what you don't have, you're not in the present; you're consumed by the past you can't change and the future that has yet to happen. There is no impact in either place.

The impact is here and now. Stop, check in, and connect in relationship with those around you. Be present, make the impact with those you see in your life today. Your future will unfold more powerfully and profoundly than you could ever imagine when you focus on the right things; relationships, people, love and community.

Being present will engage you in ways that will offer you greater insights into who you are; what others see in you; what gets you excited; and where you are going with your life. Giving time to others in the moment will enrich your experience of living as the energy of two create new possibilities. It's never about what you get; it's always about what you give! With greater awareness, that can only come through the being present, you will experience better decision-making and a much more profoundly lived life.

Though one could be infinitely happy by just enjoying the nature and family and all the human-made things, there are still millions of people who are unhappy.  In the developed countries there is very fortunate circumstance of having both God-given and man-made things.  Still majority of people there are unhappy.  In the developing countries, where for millions there is a real scarcity of even basic needs, people seem to be happy.  There are some people who are engaged in difficult tasks and in warfare, and even incarcerated in prisons, and are still happy!  We have just discussed the factors of happiness.  Millions of people have them, still they are unhappy.  There are millions of others who don’t have them, yet they are happy!

You would realize that the mere availability and abundance of God given and human-made things is not enough.  There is something else which should be right to be happy.   Of course, it is our mind that must have right attitude towards and capacity to be happy.

Milton in Paradise Lost says,

'The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.'

One can give various examples of how mind can influence our body::

• Pavlov’s dog starts salivating at the sound of the bell without any food in sight.
• If we are tense we often get headache, backache, and spondylitis, etc.
• Heart attacks are directly linked to worry and tension.
• Right mental attitude helps in curing many bodily maladies.
• By self-talk, motivation, and positive attitude we can become happy and successful.
• Through hypnosis one can have command over another person’s mind and body.
• Through meditation one can have a healthy body and extra sensory abilities.

Mind has extra-ordinary powers and as far as happiness is concerned it has the ultimate power.  We should, therefore, have a positive attitude towards life.  Instead of concentrating on bad things in life and people, we should concentrate on redeeming features in them.  We should not keep on thinking about past failures and bad experiences but be encouraged by our past success and good experiences.  Similarly, we should not be unduly anxious about future as our anxiety is not going to have a positive effect, but we should plan and work hard for the future.

In whatever circumstances you are, you can never have total lack of God-given and man-made happiness.  You cannot completely take away nature from somebody; you cannot take away all man-made things from somebody.  Even if everything is taken, one’s family and friends are there.  One’s precious body is there.  And, even if you chain somebody securely in a dungeon, one’s mind is free.  One is free to be happy in one’s mind!  Mind is difficult to be mastered by oneself, but it is impossible to be vanquished by anybody, any authority, or whatever conditions or situations.

Abraham Lincoln has beautifully expressed it: “Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”

BE HAPPY!

Have you ever thought who you are? Are you the body you see every day in a mirror? Of course you are not. Your body is constantly changing. It is different now than ten or twenty years ago. According to some scientists cells in our bodies are constantly replaced by the new ones. Although the scientists differ in their opinions, most of them agree that every seven years we have a completely new body. Not even one cell is the same.

Anyway, most people intuitionally feel that they are not their bodies. When someone dies they say he has left. So, what has left? The body it’s still there.

Are you your mind? You can observe your own mind. You can notice what you are thinking about now. Maybe you are reading this article now, but you are thinking about something else? Doesn’t it happen often? You can observe how your mind works, so you are not your mind.

But most of the time we don’t observe it. It’s just the opposite, our minds constantly play different films in front of us, and it is not easy to stop them doing it.

Have you ever tried to control your mind? Try for five minutes to concentrate on something. Let’s say visualize a yellow triangle. Do not think about anything else. Just concentrate on the yellow triangle. Can you do it? Notice how many times you have thought about something else than the yellow triangle. It’s very difficult to control a mind. Usually our minds control us.

What do you mostly think about every day? If you are like most people you think about your past or your future.

Our past reminiscences can be happy or sad, but past is the past. It’s gone. Future is unknown, but we are creating our future now. Whatever we are thinking about now will manifest in the future. So if we think about our problems, lack of money, difficult situations, our future will be like this. If we think how make ends meet, it will happen. We will just make ends meet.

What if you started to live now? What if you stopped thinking about your past and stopped worrying about your future. You could think now that your life is happy. You could think that NOW you and your family have everything that you want and desire. Try it. Try to really visualize your perfect life. Don’t think about future. Think that it’s now and be grateful for it. If your visualization is good, you will feel happy and excited. You will feel good, but most important is that you have just started making it really happen in the future.

Of course, you need to train your mind to do it every day. You need to learn the science of manifestation and practice. Great things don’t come easily. That’s why so many people don’t live the lives of their dreams. They don’t control their lives. They live their lives automatically. But you can change it. You can be happy, healthy and wealthy. You just need to make some effort.

Gratitude or appreciation of what we already have is necessary to attract things we want. Every day when you wake up try to be thankful. Think about the good things in your live you should be thankful for. Appreciate your job (even if you don’t like it).

Feel gratitude for a place to live. If you have some food, some friends or anything else you can find to appreciate, appreciate it. A lot of people don’t have enough even basic things like food, water and their own place to live. It’s natural that you want more, that you want to improve your standard of life, but first you need to feel gratitude for what you already have.

If you start your day with feelings of gratitude you will feel good and you can keep that feeling all day.

But you should also write down something like this: “I am so happy and grateful that…” and then write what you would like to have. For example: “I am very happy and grateful that I make $1 million per year; that I have wonderful and loving wife…etc.” Use the present tense, visualize the things you want, be grateful for them, and think about them as already yours. When you achieve them, you can add new things to your list. When you write about money, start first with amount you believe is possible and then increase the amount when you got the amount you’d written down. Be specific.

When you start doing as described above, at first you might feel strange that you are using present tense for the things you want to have in the future, but it’s important to train your mind and force your mind to think about them in present tense. After some time of playing such “mental ping pong” your mind will obey and will help you to achieve the things you want.

I have met many people in my life who are very negative. They moan about seemingly everything and walk around with the weight of the world on their shoulders. I was also like that until the age of twenty-two, at this age I decided to have a new approach to life.

For those first twenty-two years, I was forever feeling sorry for myself. My friends all appeared to have so much more than me, and my life was one long hard struggle, compared to theirs. I was caught up in a web of negativity and needed someone or something to help me to escape.

During an afternoon at work one day, aged as I say twenty-two, a colleague I was working with started to talk to me. What he said was a shock to me, however would have a profound effect on my future. He said to me:

"Your are somebody who always thinks in a negative way, you a right depressive person, aren't you?"

"Am I?"

I said in a shocked voice as I believed I was no different to anybody else. He continued:

"Yes you are. You very rarely smile, you are negative about most issues and you always seem to be carrying the world on your shoulders".

This man was aged around fifty three and continued:

"I used to be like you and then I was given some advice, of which I am now going to relay to you. When you feel down, depressed or sorry for yourself, read the newspapers or watch the news on the television. You may then realise that you are in fact one of the lucky ones."

I had a long think about what he had said. I had never been a big reader or watcher of the news, but decided to give it a go. The advice he gave me was totally correct, the news from around the world and even my own country was quite shocking. I realised that the worries I had were actually quite trivial and that I needed to cherish everyday and start to look on the bright side of life.

Stephen Hill