Yesterday I had a panic attack.  Things were moving so slowly with our Indiegogo campaign.  My web guru friend said so.  Do another mailing.  Send out the press release.  Blog.  Facebook.  Twitter.  I couldn’t breathe.

Then about six people said, “Hey Paula,  breathe!  Take it easy.”  I went and hung out with some horses.  They were breathing.

Today, I am going to try doing what I am always telling other people to do.  Take a focused breath.  Feel your body.  Take a walk.  Look around.  Ask for help.  OK.

Abraham says that, “It is as easy to create a castle as a button. It’s just a matter of whether you’re focused on a castle or a button.”

I am focused on a castle.  With your kind help.

Please make a donation to my campaign.  Help support this work that I believe in so passionately and that I want to share with you.

Thank you.  Thank you.  Thank you.

p.s.  Tomorrow I am going to share some cool video.  Stay tuned, please.

SHARE & EMAIL

On August 13, Jenna Wogenrich challenged her readers to write down what they want.  She said to write it down, print it and carry it with you.  (You should read the whole of this blogpost!)  So far, 71 people have left  comments, each one more poignant, passionate and delicious than the next.  I took her up on the invitation.  Here’s what I wrote:

I want to sell my current home and move into one that feels right-sized for our work and our lives together, a place that has splendid views, some land – a place where I can bring my horses home when they retire. I want to feel financially free, light and abundant. I want to spread my work with horses and humans far and wide, to publish my book, to help people find their own creative and playful selves through movement and animals. I want to spend at least 6 weeks a year by the sea. I want to engage, connect and love everywhere, every moment.    

And then, as if the universe was listening (it is), here is what came to my inbox from Abraham today:

Law of Attraction abounds, and when it is said to you, “Ask, and it is given,” there is no more powerful statement that is at the basis of what makes things happen than that. Now, how is it that you think you ask? With your words? The Universe doesn’t hear your words. You ask with your desire. The desire that is born out of the contrast. That desire. That wanting. That’s what summons the Life Force.

What do you want?  Tell Jenna, tell me.

SHARE & EMAIL

This morning I entered the day with my camera.  Diving into the work from a different end of the pool.  Finding stillness  and a beginning through the lens.

Sometimes I think that beginning again is like climbing a summit.  Lots of sweaty, hard work to get to a new place.  I forget that it can be effortless.  A breath is a beginning.

I have been writing a lot about something that Abraham calls “segment intending.”  It is one of the processes from Money, and the Law of Attraction. What it means is that each time you shift an activity, you are conscious that you are leaving one segment – one chapter or scene – and entering another.  For example, if I am writing this blog, and the phone rings, then I am leaving the writing and starting a phone segment.

The next step is to bring a sense of intention to that next segment.  Just being aware is plenty.  If it is a phone call, then setting an intention to be present and patient is a good one for me (who tends to be impatient and wanting to be somewhere else).

So this morning, starting the day with a different point of entry – the camera- was a way to find a new perspective.  I also set an intention that I would dip into into seeing and feeling first thing.  Beginning with a different feeling in the body – striding across the field BEFORE sitting to write.

How do you begin?

SHARE & EMAIL

Whatever you’re thinking about is literally like planning a future event. When you’re worrying, you are planning. When you’re appreciating you are planning…What are you planning?

— Abraham

I have found myself worry planning some big trouble lately.  It is so easy.  Just think the scary thoughts and follow the scary mind movie to its scary conclusion.

I think this is in the category of not doing my best, one of the four agreements from  The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom (A Toltec Wisdom Book)by Don Miguel Ruiz.  “Always do your best,” he says.

When I do am doing this kind of worry planning, here’s what I do.  I tell myself that I want to feel good.  I pet a cat a dog a horse.  I take a walk.  I watch something like Bridesmaids again or listen to Annie Lamott reading Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith. I get as general as I can, which means not drilling down into the situation or even a good feeling solution for that situation.  I leave it alone.  As best I can.

SHARE & EMAIL

Nothing needs to be fixed. Everything is unfolding perfectly. So when you stand in your now accepting that all is well, then from that vibration, you become surrounded by more and more evidence that all is well. But when you’re convinced that things are broken, that there is pollution, or that things have gone wrong, or that the government is doing conspiracies… then what happens is you get caught up in that vibration, and you begin to manifest that kind of stuff, and then you say, “See, I told you that things were going wrong.”

— Abraham, Excerpted from the workshop in North Los Angeles, CA on Tuesday, March 7th, 2000

I got this in my inbox from Abraham last week.  It sums up pretty perfectly what I have been practicing.  Appreciation and being ok with what is here now.  To not focus on what I don’t want to bring home with me.

Two nights ago I started to read a story in the New Yorker.  It was about the Rutgers student who committed suicide because of online bullying.  I read less than one sentence, and then closed the magazine.  I know about it and that s enough – more than enough.  I don’t need to explore it.

The same thing goes for the pre-election scuffling, posturing and ranting.  There is really nothing there for me.  I will probably work for the candidate of my choice, but I will be looking to frame things in an expansive, positive way, rather than getting caught up in the fear-rage muck.

I realized a while back that there are certain chronic vibrations/mind states that are very hard to shift.  The scarcity mentality is one of those. If I am convinced that there will never be enough, there certainly will not be enough.  If I cannot feel my way toward a sense of plenty, then that fullness cannot find me.

So here is what I do.  I do not focus there.  I pet a dog/cat/horse or put on some music and dance, or drink a lovely cup of tea, have lunch with my honey or watch a movie.  That kind of distraction is a very good strategy for creating a feeling of appreciation, which is where the good stuff can find me, every time.

SHARE & EMAIL

I was in New York City today for the third time this week.  It was cold and dark when I caught the 6:50 train.  I had brought some editing and got into a fabulous focus flow with my two seatmates who were both buried in their Kindles.

The train was delayed by 40 minutes, and I was walking fast when a taxi unloaded its passenger right in front of me, so I flagged him down.  He was a lovely Sikh gentleman, and because I have a long and deep relationship with India and Nepal, we began to talk.

He said what a beautiful day it was.  How many people do not notice the beauty of the day and the simple pleasures of the sun and just being alive.  He talked about people living in India who seem often so much happier even though they are poorer by far.   He talked about spirit and appreciation and happiness pretty much for the whole trip, which was not long, and I felt pretty blissful by the time we reached my destination.

As I got out of the taxi, I realized that I had just experienced a rampage of appreciation.   Have a listen.

SHARE & EMAIL

Photo:  theredmenmovie.com

Yesterday I wrote about how the horse mirrors us and asked, “What mirrors you?”  Here is another take:

This is always true: What I think and how I feel, and what manifests, is always a vibrational match. But here’s the big kicker: What manifests isn’t manifesting instantaneously. So, you’ve got all this buffer of time leeway that makes you sloppy… If you thought a negative thought and a brick would instantly fall on your head every time, you’d clean up your thinking. But you’re not here to be punished about your thinking. You’re here to use your thinking—and your focus—to create.  Abraham, Excerpted from the workshop in Washington, DC on Saturday, May 7th, 2005

Today when I woke up I could feel myself looking for trouble.  I felt it through breakfast, and pretty much through most of the morning.  This is not my usual state (any more), so I was well aware of feeling edgy, cranky and like if there was poo on the road, I was going to step in it.  Which is, metaphorically, pretty much what happened.  A nice blow up with my daughter, and a raging neck ache.  Trouble delivered.

What I am practicing now is using my focus to create how I want to feel.  This is my recipe:  hug my daughter (done); take some motrin (done); pet a cat (happening now); take a bath; eat the beautiful dinner that raw chef Stacey Stowers is preparing for us tonight; watch Downton Abbey online.

Begin again.

SHARE & EMAIL

If you have been wondering why I am not showing p in your inbox, it is because of a bad flu.  A complete flat tire.  Catching up on past series of Inspector Lewis.  Hopefully back online tomorrow.  In the meantime, there is this from Abraham:

You just cannot kill everybody who doesn’t agree with you. You can’t do it. You’ll kill enough of them, and pretty soon, you’ll be down to the nitty gritty that is just you guys, and then you’ll start disagreeing with each other… In other words, you cannot get to where you want to be by pushing against what you do not want—it never, ever works.

— Abraham

Excerpted from the workshop in Washington, DC on Saturday, May 7th, 2005 # 302

SHARE & EMAIL

You cannot judge the value of a life by its quantity. It is by the joy that you are feeling. The more joyful you are, the longer you live. Let yourself relax and breathe and be free and be joyous, and romp. The optimum physical life experience is to have plenty of things that stimulate you to desire, and an awareness of the way you feel, so you’re reaching for thoughts that feel good—so you’re wide open, so you’re tuned in, tapped in, and turned on.

Abraham – Excerpted from the workshop in Chicago, IL on Saturday, September 7th, 2002

This is a photo of my daughter Bimala with the mules Gizmo and Gomez.  May your holiday have moments of this kind of happiness and connection. Appreciation for the small moments and for what is precious to you.

SHARE & EMAIL

I gave this paperweight to Pam a couple years ago.  It was actually a note to myself – something I wanted to remind myself of daily.  It has migrated to my desk, which I keep very clear otherwise.

Doing a weekly (at least) ritual clearing of my desk seems to be something that helps me to find focus.  Otherwise stuff accumulates and I lose the thread; the gathering detritus pulls me in before I have a chance to feel the more tender buds of whatever is percolating.  

I listened to an Abraham rampage driving through the hills of the Hudson valley the other day.  A rampage is a river, a pouring, a flood of appreciation.  In this one, each sentence started with “can you feel” and then went on to name a sensory experience.  Like this:

• Can you feel that view?
• Can you feel the sun on that mountain?
• Can you feel that song?
• Can you feel how delicious that tastes?

And on and on.  I was grinning by the end.  So coming back to Henry Ford’s quote, I want to say instead, “Whether you feel you can or if you feel you can’t, you’re right.”  Putting it that way puts me in a more emotional, less think-y/figuring it out relationship with the can part.  And that allows me to feel more connected to the can than the can’t.

What do you feel?

 ps.  Be sure to write if you would like more information about my new offering:  Breaking into Blossom:  Moving into an Improvisational Life.   Five weeks of jump start strategies for improvisational living.

SHARE & EMAIL