Category: Changing Habits

Shifting feelings to the positive

KICKING THE TIRES OF SEPTEMBER 9 2020

S R Janssen

This afternoon I engaged in an event in which I missed the mark by a mile in terms of desired outcome. BUT it led me down a new path of thought that I will be testing for this week.

Since third grade, I’ve feared people disapproving me; for decades I’ve allowed fear of people’s reactions to turn me away from from goals. So, this afternoon, I was determined muscle my way to a specific result when engaging with a stranger. Instead of achieving the result I wanted, I got a lap full of disapproval. On the one hand, it was a win in that I stood my ground for once and “waded in” instead of my usual cowardly retreat from the field of battle. The disapproval slid off like water from a duck’s back. For that, I award myself a gold star.

However, I failed to achieve my objective. Keeping a blind eye on my objective, I expressed myself in forceful manner which immediately elicited resistance.  Now I am re-thinking what it means to be powerful. It could be a mistake to define power as “the greatest application of force.”

What if power results from focused imagining of the desired outcome before engaging in activity?

What if I actively imagine a desired outcome, then stand aside and allow the desired outcome to work itself out using resources of which I am unaware?

What would have happened if I had taken ten or fifteen minutes to actively imagine the desired outcome, before engaging myself in that event?

Had I not been so blindly determined to achieve my outcome would I have been smarter and taken a breath and taken time to assess the energy in the room and assess the other person’s state of mind?

Funny thing, the interaction that occurred was an exact reflection of myself.

Advertisement

KICKING THE TIRES OF JUNE 16, 2020

S R Janssen
Image of succulents that uses an effect that make a photo look like a painting. Illustrates an experience that is not definite by concrete experience.
An experienced remembered from another place

My dreams, at least the ones I remember, arrive in the early morning, rattle around for a second or two, then exit leaving no trace. This morning’s dream lingered. It did more than linger; it clamored for attention. A set of serious men in grey suits were interviewing me for a job. They asked what school I attended before transferring to UCLA.

I was flooded with memories of my time there, yet I simply could not recall the name of that school.  It was a prestigious school, with a name once as familiar to me as my own. As I failed again and again to capture that elusive name, my distress increased. Finally, I just gave up, thinking that my three years at UCLA had to satisfy the interviewers.

The moment I woke up, I knew immediately that I had attended Otero Junior College for a year.  However, the memories I was recalling while dreaming were vivid memories of an experience I never experienced in a school I never attended. Nevertheless, I felt there was validity in the experience.

If there were anything more to that dream than simple reverberations from my recent reading then I leave it to my subconscious to sort, while I go clean the bathroom.

KICKING THE TIRES OF JUNE 12, 2012

S R Janssen

Shifting the experience of reality

This morning, I spent a while in bed savoring the flood of early morning sunlight through the window. Gradually, I began feeling the validity of the Neville Goddard book I read yesterday.  That state that I term “the fourth dimension” is feeling more real to me.  I am feeling my way into the validity of creating an experience by feeling my way into ownership of the desire. Now I believe, I can call into existence that which I own through the strength of my feelings. Metaphorically speaking, the game is to keep my attention focused on what I want instead of lending any attention to problems.

Accomplishing this state of imagination requires relaxation; in my experience, effort is inimical to creation through imagination and feeling. Shifting from dependence on physical senses to dependence on my feelings requires attention and lots of practice. Then this lesson from Don Juan[1]: the warrior’s pause that gives the world that one beat that allows conscious choice.

I have to laugh at the ways I operated from resistance and self-righteousness for so much of the time. So, every day, I spend a few moments of appreciation for my sense of humor, my ability to see the funny side of things and laugh.  I also appreciate the wonderful books in my life that fed me words of wonder, magic, beauty and faith in the basic well-being of the world.

[1] The sorcerer Don Juan, Carlos Castenada’s mentor

Kicking the Tires of Halloween 2019

S R Janssen

The Case for Better Feeling Thoughts

Some days ago, a conversation with a close relative set slammed the door on my figurative tail. Indeed my back was up just like an angry cat. My mind muttered on about that event for most of the day. I was angry.

Feeling angry feels bad physically. As I always prefer feeling good, I simply stopped thinking about the incident. I started thinking about pony trekking in Iceland; imagining the horse I was riding and the scenery I was riding through. That felt so good, my spirit lifted to the point of motivating me to work a rock garden. I completely forgot about the annoying conversation.

The next day, that event drifted back into my attention. In the interim, my viewpoint had shifted. It seemed to me that my relative actually had a valid point and that I was pig-headedly holding on to an issue that hadn’t been relevant since 2015.

There is no law that requires me to continue thinking thoughts about annoying events in the past. It’s a free country; I am allowed to think about anything I like-particularly if they are thoughts that feel good even when they are figments of my imagination.