My Solstice Lesson or Why Ella Should Have Taken the Cake

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One thing I’ve learned is that you never know where the lesson will come from. My daughter and I went to a gathering last night for a Solstice ritual and to celebrate the birthday of a friend. It was a lovely little gathering with a beautiful, simple ritual followed by a delicious potluck.

The ritual was short and sweet with no immediately apparent insights or awakenings. But whether or not there was an immediate shift in awareness, I’ve discovered that the seeds are planted when you participate in ritual and you never know when they will blossom!

But the evening was not without a more immediate lesson. And it was all about the birthday cake. Yes, the birthday cake.

chocolate-cakeThis morning I woke up thinking about last night’s cake. Now it’s as if I usually wake up in the mornings thinking about cake. And, really, I wasn’t thinking about the cake, per se. No, seriously! I was thinking about my interaction with my daughter, Ella, regarding the cake.

First let me describe the cake. It was dark chocolate cake, moist and full of rich chocolatey flavor with a layer of raspberry preserves and frosted with a chocolate ganache. Definitely yummy!

But when I saw the size of the pieces my friend Tim was cutting – can you say Rambo Sized? – I asked for him to cut a special smaller piece and then cut that piece into a small piece for Ella and a not-quite-so-small piece for me.

There were several reasons I wanted Ella to have a small slice: It was late, almost 8:30 by the time we had cake – can you say “Sugar High?” and she’s also a little sensitive to wheat and dairy. And this cake was loaded with both.

So Tim handed down our small little slivers of cake and we were happy. Well, Ella was happy. When I received my little sliver, I was a bit disappointed. Apparently I had not clearly communicated my request to Tim. I wanted Ella to have a tiny slice and I wanted to have a medium sized slice. But we both got tiny slices.

I could feel myself doing one of those cartoon double takes… looking at my little slice, looking at Neil’s big slice, looking at my little slice, looking at Chris’s big slice, looking at… well you get the idea.

I was so focused on the quantity of cake I had – or didn’t have – that I hardly even noticed how good it was. And when I wasn’t lamenting the size of my slice I was engaged in conversation, further distracting me from the full pleasure that the cake could have provided.

After I finished my piece, which didn’t take long since it was so tiny, I continued talking while still hearing a little voice inside of me saying that I had not gotten enough cake. (Notice that the voice was not telling me that I had not EATEN enough cake but that I had not RECEIEVED enough cake. Big difference!)

I found myself watching Tim as he continued cutting the cake, wondering if there was going to be any left for me to have a second small slice. It was going to be a close call. But before he reached the end, Jaci sat down across from me and, seeing the size of the slice on her plate asked for a much smaller one. So I jumped in and said that she could just give me what she didn’t want of hers.

Perfect! In fact, more than perfect: She gave me more than I wanted!

Meanwhile, as all of this internal drama was playing out, Ella was totally immersed in a full body experience of enjoying the cake. She was carefully deconstructing it as she ate: first scraping off the frosting and savoring that, then cutting off small pieces of the cake, lighting up with surprise and joy when she got a taste of the raspberry filling which she couldn’t see because it blended in with the color of the cake.

She was just finishing her slice when I received the “bonus” slice from Jaci. And of course, she wanted a bit more also. I let her have one more bite but turned down her request for a second “last last last last bite” at which point she shifted her attention to licking the plate clean – literally!

So here I was chowing down on a second piece of cake, focused more on the quantity than the quality, missing out on the fullness of the experience while Ella was totally immersed in the experience. For her, nothing else existed outside of her relationship to that tiny slice of cake. She was a study in the Power of Now.

And what a beautiful lesson!

How often do I distract myself from the present moment because I am focused on what I don’t have? How often do I miss out on the fullness of an experience because I am comparing what I do have to what someone else has? How often does my mind lead me into the what ifs of the future or the what could have beens of the past leaving no space for the what is of the present?

Far too often.

So, no matter what else blossoms from last night’s ritual, if I can take this reminder of presence and full participation with me as we move back into the light, I will be very happy!

Epilogue:

About halfway through my “bonus” piece of cake – around the time that I noticed Ella licking her plate! – I broke out of the trance I was in and realized I did not need to eat it all. So I took one more bite, with a much higher level of presence, and then put down my fork.

Soon after that, Jane sat down next to me interested in a small piece of cake. I offered her the rest of the cake I had been eating which she said was exactly how much she wanted!

Posted by Edward Mills | Filed Under Personal Growth 

Bless All Expressions of Financial Abundance

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Posted by Edward Mills | Filed Under Personal Growth 

Can a Sales Page Change Your Life?

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I believe the Simpleology 201 sales page can.

Near the top of the sales page, Mark Joyner writes:

How can you have everything in the world you could ever want?
Go with me, absorb every word in this letter and you will discover . . . I will give you the ‘Know How’!
I need you to forget self-limitation for the moment.
Can you do this?

Can you? Can you let go of your limiting beliefs for the 5-mintues it takes to read that page? Because if you can, it means that you can let go of them at other times as well.

Now just because I coach people and write a personal development blog doesn’t mean that I’m immune to self-limitation. In fact, I can be pretty darn good at it!

But what I found when I read those words from Mark is that I WAS able to let go of my self-limitation. It was as if being asked if I could let them go somehow gave me permission to do just that.

Could it really be that simple? Could it really be just that we need someone to give us permission to release our limiting beliefs?

Often it can seem as if our limiting beliefs are too powerful for us. The self-sabotaging actions we take and self-limiting habits in which we engage seem to be driven by some indistinct presence that hangs out just below our conscious awareness.

We can sense that it’s there, but we can’t quite get a clear picture of it and we can’t get a handle on why or how it gets us to act in ways that are counterproductive.

The truth is that why and how that presence does what it does is really not all that important. What is important is learning how to break out of its control.

And if someone asking you the simple question, ”Can you forget self-limitation for the moment?” can help break that grip, that’s one more tool to hang on your belt!

So go check out the page and see if you have the same response I did. What a gift to be asked that question and to be given permission to step aside from your limiting beliefs.

FYI: The point of this post is not to get you to purchase the Simpleology 201 program – although if you do, and you got there by clicking one of the links on this page I will earn a small commission. The purpose of this post is to give you the opportunity to try out one more tool you can use to minimize the influence of your limiting beliefs.

And by the way, there’s a lot more life changing information on that page. Check out these little tidbits: “Life is too short for you to try to do it all by yourself.” (That’s been a huge one for me to learn!) And how about this: “Ultimately, I think that what we are experiencing now is simply the beginning of the final sloughing off of our shackles.”

And I’ll leave you with a graphic from the page that simply illustrates why so many traditional institutions are having such a hard time as we move through this tumultuous time:

philo-2

Posted by Edward Mills | Filed Under Personal Growth 

No More Vision Boards

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For the past 4-years I’ve led a New Year Vision Board Workshop in January. These events have always been a huge success. But this year I was questioning whether or not I would offer this popular event. Why?

Because I was questioning whether or not I wanted to encourage people to focus on how much more “stuff” they could attract into their lives in 2010.

Even though Vision Boards have been in use for a very long time, since the release of the movie, The Secret, they have come to be associated with the Law of Attraction. Because of that, when people create a Vision Board they almost always focus on what they want to ATTRACT into their life. They focus on what they want.

As I’ve been grappling with my relationship to Law of Attraction I find myself questioning the core message: Namely that focusing on your desires will lead you to a life of fulfillment, joy, love and abundance.

Now there is nothing wrong with desire, and this is not the time to get into a deeper discussion about the place of desire in the creation of a brilliant life. But without exception, every one of the Abundant Mystics (truly successful Modern Day Mystics) I’ve interviewed for the Abundant Mystic Teleseminar Series, have shared that a key to a life of fullfillment, joy and abundance is to focus on what you can CREATE and GIVE to the world.

The key is not what you can get, but what you can give.

The focus should not be what you can attract but what you can create.

During the 2008 Vision Board Workshop a participant asked me if a Vision Board needs to be about “stuff.” I answered the question in a blog post Does a Vision Board Need Be About Stuff. But the short answer is absolutely not.

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As my relationship to Law of Attraction has evolved, I have come to believe that one of the keys to succeeding with the Law of Attraction is, in fact, to take your focus OFF of what you want. It may sound counterintuitive. And it certainly flies in the face of many Law of Attraction teachings. But when you focus on what you can create and give to the world, your desires will take care of themselves.

Now let me be clear that by create I’m talking about what you can make. What can you build that has never existed before? What can you bring into the world of form that has previously existed only in the formless?

As a Deliberate Creator you are definitely ”creating” your life when you attract a new car or a new home. But there is a deeper meaning to the phrase Deliberate Creation, a meaning that moves you from being an attractor to being a Creator.

You activate that deeper level when you create something out of nothing, when you bring something from a formless state into the world of form.

You are a unique expression of Source energy. You are a child of God. No one else in all the world – in fact, all the Universe – has the same combination of qualities, characteristics, skills, perception and abilities as you. And therefore you are uniquely qualified to create something that no one else can.

That is your job. This is the purpose you have come here, into this physical world, to embody. And so long as you continue to focus on “attracting” things that others have created, you will not find the fulfillment, joy and true abundance that is your birthright.

It is through the act of creation, true creation, that you awaken to that deep joy and activate your brilliance.

So at this year’s Vision Board Workshop we will shift the focus from what you will attract in 2010 to what you will create. Yes, you can still put the picture of the new car you will have. Yes you can still put images of the fabulous vacation you will take.

But you will also, and more importantly, have images of the book you will publish, the songs you will write, the blog you will launch, the business you will start, the relationships you will improve, the artwork you will create, the courses you will teach, the inventions you will prototype, the beauty you will bring to the world.

In short you will focus on how your presence in the world will make the world a better place. For when that is your focus the Universe can’t help itself: It must make YOUR personal world a better place!

So when you make your Vision Board for 2010 spend some time focusing on what you will create. Envision not just the “stuff” you want to attract, but also the stuff you will create.

And if you are in the Bay Area and want to join us for the 2010 Vision Board Workshop, go and get registered now. This event is sure to get your New Year off to a fun and intentional start!

(And if you register today – Tuesday December 8th – you’ll save $22!)

So go out and create. We are all waiting to see the unique blessings that you have to offer our world!

Posted by Edward Mills | Filed Under Personal Growth