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When she heard that it was my birthday, a little neighbor girl asked: “what are you getting?” Not an unusual question to ask given this girl’s love of having parties with friends and getting lots of presents. Yet this question made me stop and think. What would I really love to have for my birthday?

I had been feeling overwhelmed, so the answer came quickly: I want to feel really really fantastic! Flowing easily with time. More joyful than ever.

That sparked a provocative question…

What if, instead of being focused on what I was getting, I focused on what I was giving? What could I give that would make me feel fantastic?

The Key to Happiness

Recently I was reading the book called “Happiness is Free” by Hale Dwoskin and Lester Levenson and I was struck by Lester’s discovery of the key to happiness.

Lester was a very unhealthy man who was told by his doctor that he didn’t have long to live. With all his accumulated wealth and knowledge Lester was still not happy. He began to question the meaning of life and what he wanted out of it. He realized that he wanted happiness and set out to discover what made him the happiest. He initially assumed that feeling loved would lead to feeling happy, but he was surprised to discover that this was not true.

Instead, he came to this shocking conclusion: he felt the happiest when he was loving.

He also discovered that his thinking was the cause of everything that happened to him and he began to change his views about life and the world.

Lester practiced being more and more loving, in his mind and outwardly, even when others seemed to be attacking him. In three months, all of his ailments disappeared, his miseries vanished, and he was happy all the time without sorrow.

Not only was loving others his miracle cure, it was the key to happiness.

My Birthday Gift

I was deeply moved by Lester’s story. If he could love so fully, I could too. The temporary ego approval of feeling loved by others does not feel nearly as good as the feeling of loving others. If I could increase my loving of others I could increase my happiness. This would be an empowering practice!

My birthday intention was to expand my willingness and capacity to love. I would consciously love others, not to get their approval of me, but for the sake of loving. As Lester did, instead of wanting others to do something for me, I would find a way to accept and love them.

This was easy to do with family members and close neighbours. I reminded myself of what I appreciated about them and told them. I had no complaints. I accepted them exactly the way they were, quirks and all.

Loving all, except…?

But there was one person who was not so easy to love.  In fact, he was a pain in the ass. A person who complained all the time and made threats – or so it seemed. Was there another way of looking at this?

My ego was slippery trying to avoid taking responsibility for my part in our past interactions. But with some serious self-inquiry, I realized that the world I was seeing was just a reflection of my own mind.

If we are all connected and we are all one, then this one is the same as me: innocent, worthy, and loving. What if I could change my experience with this person by changing my mind?  It had worked for me before.

If I wanted to feel happy, my choice was obvious. I resolved to accept this man as he was, to love him like a brother. I focused on what I appreciated about him and imagined him and I happy together.

So far all my loving interactions with him have been in my head, but now I’m looking forward to seeing him in person and creating a more harmonious relationship. He is my healing partner. He’s helping me to discover that I can express love under all conditions. And I do appreciate that.

Birthday High on Love

“When you fully love someone, you identify with and you become one with that one. When we love totally, we totally identify with the grand and glorious infinite being that we are!” ~ Lester Levenson

Mostly I floated through my birthday feeling high on love. It is so empowering to remember that how I feel is completely under my control. That no one has to do anything different in order for me to be happy.

I’ve decided to extend my birthday intention to keep my happy vibes going. Unconditional loving equates to ultimate happiness. You must try it!

So, what do you think of these ideas?  Leave a comment below and I’ll offer a free coaching session to the first 5 people to respond. Thanks.

~~~~~~~~~
Similar Posts:

My 30 Intentions for Today
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I love this kind of response when I send out an email, don’t you?

Katie was responding to a delightful quote from Abraham-Hicks comparing the process of life to the process of orgasms.

Abraham was sharing how we humans are so eager to get what we want – to get to the manifestations boom, boom, boom – that  we forget about the journey.

“We want that for you, but we LOVE the process of life.

We love the process, the delicious process of choosing,
and the delicious process of launching the rocket [of desire],
and the delicious process of knowing that you’re not keenly in alignment with it or maybe not even close to it.

And then the process of deliberately lining up with it.
And then the conscious awareness of following your impulses,
… that intuition,
… … that feeling of flow,
… … … that feeling of empowerment,
… … … …that feeling of walking on air,
… … … … …that feeling of knowing you can do no wrong,
that feeling of all things working out for you.

And THEN, the manifestation.

Because life isn’t about wanting it and getting it, wanting it and getting it, wanting it and getting it, wanting it and getting it, wanting it and getting it.

It’s about wanting it, and making your way to the receiving of it.  

Sort of like orgasms.”  

~ Abraham-Hicks, LA, 1/26/13

Love, love, love the process of life and you’ll live happily ever after.

~~~~~~~~~
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Joy First. Then Anything Else You Have Time For
Joy First is Key to Success With Law of Attraction
Rules for the Joyous Renegade

spider web decorated with frost

This morning when I was out for my walk, I was awestruck by nature’s splendor: a whole row of bushes was covered in spider webs delicately decorated with frost crystals.

I was transfixed, closely examining each web and taking pictures, the light conditions were perfect. The sun had not come around yet to melt the magic.

We have so much to appreciate in this magnificent world and it is everywhere. I’m not always present enough to notice it. Are you?

Yet, I find that when I do take breaks away from my “to do list” and notice the simple things that inspire and enrich me, I’m uplifted.  Ideas start to flow in, tasks are handled in perfect timing with less effort, and I have more energy for life.

Here’s how it happened for a client of mine.

Sue called earlier today. “Can I reschedule our coaching to two hours later?” she asked. “I could really use it ‘cause my business just isn’t growing fast enough, but the sun is finally out after days of rain and I really want to walk the dogs.”

“Sure,” I said, and I gave her a simple assignment for her dog walk. I asked her to practice deliberately looking for things to appreciate. Not worrying about her business or ruminating about things she didn’t like; she was only to give attention to what inspired her.

spider web 2 decorated with frost

A while later she called again.

“Thanks! I just had a great coaching session so I won’t need to come and see you today.”

“What?”

“I’m such a good student, I did what you suggested and something really astonishing happened.”

She told me how she had appreciated the snow-capped mountains, rolling hills, grazing horses, swooping eagles and her well-trained dogs. She had appreciated her freedom to come and go as she pleased. She appreciated her husband who supported her in starting her new business and much more. After her mood lifted, she was inspired to practice training her dogs and went to a deserted parking lot in the country not expecting to find other people.

“Shortly after I arrived, a man drove into the parking lot. He was the same man who was in my introductory class last week. We started chatting and he gave me some feedback on how to improve my teaching that was so helpful to me. This question had been burning in my mind and he answered it perfectly.

“Then he gave me a brilliant idea to turn my 6 classes of 1.5 hours into a two day workshop. He said his wife was considering driving all the way to Seattle (over 160 km) to get the training on a weekend instead of in 6 weeks. I would love to create a weekend workshop!

“Then, he also suggested a clever new way I could promote myself. You know how I feel shy about giving out my dog training business cards. Well, he suggested that I train my dogs in public places and then it would feel much more natural to hand out my business cards to people who are interested. From now on, I’m going to visit different parks and practice my training where other dog walkers can see me.”

“What a great synchronicity how this man came to you and that he had so much good information for you to grow your business. Mighty manifesting,” I said.  “Will you continue to appreciate?” I asked.

“Absolutely!” she said.

“Oh! There’s a radiant sliver of pink just over the Lions (mountains). So breathtaking. And the colors of the trees and plants everywhere are so vivid.”

Obviously she was still high on life. And her happy mood had attracted a happy rendezvous and inspiring ideas.

So take a break! Walk the dog. Or pause to appreciate nature or the people around you from your current spot. Keep at it until it moves you emotionally. A few minutes of pure positive appreciation can lift your spirits, heighten your creativity, and ease you back up into the flow.  You may even feel coached towards your dreams.

~~~~~~~~~
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Starting Wednesday, November 21, 2012 at 1:00 PM PST

Play and Be Rich
[completed]

If you’d like to hear when the next one is happening, please sign up on my email list in the right column.

The Call for Love

Quick question for you:

1. When someone cuts you off in traffic…
   or
2. When someone is rude to you…
   or
3. When someone appears to do something that you don’t like…

… do you question their motives?

And suspect the worst…

1. That [bleep] cut me off on purpose.
2. She is crude and has no class.
3. He is trying to take advantage of my good nature.

Often it’s a knee-jerk reaction. But, how does it make you feel?

Do you notice that as you criticize and devalue others, you also tear down yourself?
I know I feel that way when I judge others.

What if we believed instead that every thought or action was either love or a call for love?

“There is but one interpretation of motivation that makes any sense. Every loving thought is true. Everything else is an appeal for healing and help, regardless of the form it takes.”
                                                 ~ A Course in Miracles

“Imagine, then, a society in which the prevalent legal view is simply that your brother or sister is an aspect of yourself. And if you would help yourself, you must help them. To meet each cry for help and healing with forgiveness, love, and support.
Can you imagine, for a moment what it would be like
         to live in such a society?”
                                                  ~The Way of Mastery

The one who cuts you off in traffic … a call for love.
The one who is rude to you … a call for love.
The one who appears to do something that you don’t like … a call for love.

All of us brothers and sisters giving and receiving love.

Would you like some support to practise seeing through the eyes of love more consistently?

… to practice seeing your partner, your children, your neighbors, your boss, your co-workers and especially yourself – through the eyes of love?

My husband, Howard Staples and I are facilitating a two day weekend workshop in Langley, BC entitled “The Call for Love.” July 28-29, 2012

We will be using our gentle, but profound role playing methods to experience the call for love within ourselves. More importantly, we will fully allow in Love’s answer to the call.

Let us know if you are interested in discovering The Call for Love.

Here are my top ten favorites for what happy people do instead:

1. Allowing rather than Resisting.
So much of what we resist against is beyond our immediate control and it just serves to keep us stuck in a pattern of struggle. What we resist persists. Making peace with what is means that we are free to flow our eager energy towards an even better future.

2. Trusting rather than Doubting.
Trust yourself and trust that you are on the right path. Everything does work together for our greater good. As we look back through times that seemed like struggles, we realize our strengths when we realize that even challenges have served us.

3. Appreciating rather than Criticizing / Judging.
Criticism or judgment of others is a reflection of the deeper critical or judging way we treat ourselves. Appreciation, on the other hand, builds value.

4. Empowering self and others in balance rather than Overpowering or Being Intimidated. Win-win is still a very rewarding game, even when another party plays win-lose or lose-lose.

5. Engaging and Flowing in the Now rather than Defending against grievances of the past or Controlling against fears of the future.
The defense, grievance or control actually serves to keep the same undesired pattern active in your life. In the Now there is a vast world of wonder and refreshing relationships.

6. Rising higher than appropriate challenges rather than constantly focused on a multitude of unsolvable problems.
What challenge am I ready and willing to step up into today? There seem to be so many problems in the world that are overwhelming. Yet when you know your own strength, and take one step at a time, soon that hurdle is past and it feels good in each step.

7. Taking Healthy Responsibility for the creating one’s own experience rather than Blaming Others or Taking on Burdens that are beyond one’s control.
Truly, you are responsible for your own experience. You are not responsible to change others, so do not focus on the characteristics that you don’t want. Instead get clear on the positive experiences that you do want and make very specific, realistic requests that are enriching.

8. Keep Dreaming and stepping into Dreams rather than Giving Up.
Dreams can manifest in many different, miraculous ways with an optimistic attitude.

9. Changing beliefs with some flexibility rather than being “right” or rigid, while still maintaining clarity of the truer values within.
Rigidness about the physical world and “the way things are” reflects a mind that keeps its experience quite limited. On the other hand, a clarity and consistency of the love, joy and harmony that you bring into the world, will help you bring these qualities into many, diverse circumstances.

10. Loving rather than Fearing/Worrying.
Indeed, loving defeats fear.

Have you got any to add to this list? Please share in the comments below.

~~~~~~~~~
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• Maybe you’ve worked hard, persisted until you were exhausted, and still nothing.
• Maybe you’ve heard about law of attraction, tried to apply it and can’t seem to get it to work.
• Maybe you have had some success manifesting what you want, but it’s hard to deliberately create what you want consistently, day in and day out.

There is a key ingredient in manifesting your dreams that is often overlooked, and the key is this:

it is the astonishing power of our feelings that is the
real magnetic pull in the manifesting process

Like a radio that pulls in the station which it is tuned to, we draw to ourselves experiences that match the signal we are radiating. That signal we give out is indicated by our feelings. As we feel, so we attract.

And the better we feel, the better our lives work.

One of my favorite quotes from Abraham-Hicks is this:

“It is our absolute promise to you that when you understand
the power of feeling good now,
no matter what,
you will hold the key to the achievement
of any state of being,
any state of health,
any state of wealth, or
any state of anything you desire.”

~ Esther and Jerry Hicks, Ask and It is Given (The Teachings of Abraham)

If you want to receive something different than what you’ve been getting, then some how, some way, you’ve got to change the way you feel.

Not always easy. Especially when you are in the middle of something that feels awful.

If you’d like to practice calming your mind, rising in joy and deliberately creating what you do want, then check out my next two week webinar series: Jumpstart the Life of Your Dreams [event over] starting Monday, June 4, 2012. 

Here’s what Jessica R said:

“Thank you for showing me how to tap into this magic. I feel like I have the key to the universe and everything I’ve ever wanted is coming to me. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!”

Acquiring information and tools about how to transform your life is easy. The trick is to ACT on the information. In this 14 day Jumpstart adventure you will receive the tools and support to practice living from your joy power… from the comfort of your home or wherever you are in the world.  This course will help you to build new habits that will fuel and energize you for life!

Jumpstart the Life of Your Dreams!
Monday June 4 to Saturday June 16, 2012 [event over]

If you’d like to know when the next Jumpstart course is scheduled, please sign up on my mailing list at the top of the right column.

Or something else equally neurotic?
I know I have.

Comic Bob Newhart has some words of wisdom for us in this humorous reminder about what we can do about those anxious, fearful, neurotic thoughts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ow0lr63y4Mw

Just stop it.

My sister Lydia had a similar phrase she used when she was upset about something. She would say to herself “I could just change my mind.” And she did.

Imagine that.

Michele Howe Clarke

Inspiring Speaker Series:
Miriam Evers Interviews Michele Howe Clarke

Michele Howe Clarke thought she had the perfect life – perfect marriage, perfect 6 month old daughter, perfect house, perfect car, perfect job, perfect vacations, perfect real estate – and then tragedy struck. Michele was diagnosed with aggressive head and neck cancer. It would be so disfiguring that her own doctor said he would understand if she chose death over having to live with a paralysed face.

That was 8 1/2 years ago. Michele would endure radiation with her face trapped in a mask bolted to a table so she could not move.  She lived through what most of us could barely imagine. Somehow Michele found the strength inside to take control of her mind. She became infused with incredible determination to create her best life, no matter what. And when she changed the way she looked at her world, her world changed and she began to fly.

As she says, “there came a time when I stopped trying to be beautiful and became deliberately attractive.”

In my interview with Michele she shares her inspiring journey to triumph, her work as a change agent empowering women, and her best-selling book “Face Forward and Thrive.” Michele shares her tips for facing forward and discusses the powerful questions that will help your mind help you find what you are looking for.

Michele’s mission is to turn on everyone’s light. Her bold promise: “I’m a change agent and I will turn you on.”

Click Here to Play Video (Face Forward and Thrive)

This video interview is 26 minutes long.

To find out more about Michele Howe Clarke, visit her website http://faceforwardbook.com/

~~~~~~~~~
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Kelly Falardeau

Inspiring Speaker Series:
Miriam Evers Interviews Kelly Falardeau 

They called her the “ugly scarface girl.” Kelly Falardeau was burned in an accident at the age of two. 75% of her body was severely burned and she nearly died. Her body is covered in scars. Growing up scarred in a society that worships outer beauty was tough.

Instead of shrinking away, Kelly used her scars as stepping stones to greatness. At the age of 21, Kelly became the President of the Alberta Burn Rehabilitation Society. She married and had 4 children. She’s been a model and won the people’s choice award in the Every Woman Competition. Her irrepressible spirit of joy and her insatiable drive led to her success as an international keynote speaker. Kelly is the author of two books including “No Risk, No Reward” and “Self-Esteem Doesn’t Come in a Bottle.” In 2010 she was voted Fierce Woman of the Year.

In my interview with Kelly, she shares her inspiring story about how she turned her life around and even went after her dream of being a beauty queen. She also shares her ultimate secret to self-esteem.

Self-esteem doesn’t come in a bottle of booze, a bottle of pills or a bottle of make-up. It’s an inside job. So how do you find a way to feel great when you feel like crap?

Kelly Falardeau has some answers for us.

Click Here to Play Video (Self-Esteem Doesn't Come in a Bottle)

This video interview is 35 minutes long.
To find out more about Kelly Falardeau, visit her website http://mykellyf.com/

~~~~~~~~~
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Face Forward and Thrive – Interview with Michele Howe Clarke
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