Have A Great Night, Wink Wink

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My wife and I had a date last night. Those of you with kids probably understand the significance of this more than those without! Dates, and especially dates of an intimate nature, are not all that common around here.

Last night, we decided to treat ourselves to a bit of an extra-special, pre-holiday, date night. So our first stop was the Sensuality Shoppe.

Now, I apologize to all of you who think this post is going to reveal the details. It’s not! It’s only going to provide you with a somewhat interesting – to me at least – observation.

As the woman behind the counter handed me our bag of goodies she said, as many clerks, at many other stores do, “Have a great night.”

When we got to the car, I said to my wife, “This is probably one of the few stores where a clerk can say â€˜have a great night’ with a high level of confidence that the people really will.”

And we did!

Posted by Edward Mills | Filed Under Fun, Gratitude, Parenting, Relationships

How Not To Raise An Invisible Child

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My wife, daughter, and I went to out to dinner last night. After ordering, my wife leaned in to the center of the table and said softly, “When you can, turn around and look at the table behind you.”

I waited a moment and then pretended to look at some people chatting as they came in the door. As I turned, I glanced at the table behind us. There was a couple and a twelve- or thirteen-year-old girl sitting there. Nothing unusual, except for the fact that the couple was engaged in deep conversation, turned slightly towards each other, completely ignoring the girl who was listening to her IPod while reading a book.

As I stood at the counter to pay the bill they were in the exact same configuration: couple talking, girl listening to music, reading her book. I watched the girl and could feel her desire to disappear completely, to become invisible. I sensed that she felt invisible to her parents – if they were her parents – and wanted to become invisible to everyone else so that we wouldn’t see her being unseen.

My heart called out to her. I wanted her to look over at me so I could smile at her and let her know, with a quick smile, that she was visible, that she was beautiful. But she didn’t. She looked straight ahead into her book.

As a father striving to be the best possible dad I can be, that scene caused a bit of agitation within me. Melissa put it very clearly into words once we were outside, when she said, “I don’t ever want to be like that!”

It’s very easy to look at a family like that and go into judgment. But as the saying goes, “until you have walked in their moccasinsâ€¦” There’s no way of knowing what was happening in that family, if indeed, it was a family. And so, instead of making assumptions and judgments about them, I looked at the message for me.

It’s interesting that this happened at the end of a three-day teaching weekend for my wife. Because of our 10-day Thanksgiving adventure, this weekend snuck up on us and, on Wednesday, when we realized it was coming and attempted to find childcare for Ella, everyone was booked. So I had spent three-days as the main caretaker for Ella. And looking back on that time, I noticed some things in my fathering that I’m not thrilled about.

It’s easy to get distracted when you’re eating a meal alone with a three-year-old. Right? Right. I mean, Ella does not yet have the communication skills necessary to engage in a very stimulating conversation. Sure our conversations are cute, but it can get awfully tiring responding ten-times to, “Dada’s cereal?” “Uh huh.” “Ella’s cereal?” “Yup.”

After about the 5th round of “Uh huh,” when I have finished eating and Ella is still picking up her O’s one at a time, examining each one completely before popping it in her mouth, it’s quite tempting to look for something else to do.

But here’s the thing: If, while I’m eating breakfast with Ella, I pick up a magazine or begin opening my mail (which I have done) how am I being any different than those parents at the restaurant? What messages am I sending to Ella?

How about: “I’m not interested in what you have to say.” Or, “These bills are more important than you.” Or, “When you get a bit older and can communicate better, maybe I’ll pay more attention to you.”

Not great messages to be sending to anyone let alone a malleable three-year-old.

Now without getting in to a long-winded discourse on my parenting philosophy, I will point out that I do recognize the need for balance: There are definitely times when it is appropriate to encourage Ella to do her own thing.

I certainly do not want her to grow up feeling invisible but neither do I want her to be at the other end of that spectrum, feeling like she is entitled to my – or anyone else’s – attention 100% of the time. So when I’m working on something or cleaning up and she is attempting to get my full attention, I gently encourage her to find something to do on her own.

But if we’re together for a meal that is family time, and I want to be present with Ella and whomever else I am with.

So there were two important messages for me in witnessing this scene:

First, I want to be fully present with Ella when I am with her especially during meals. I want her to grow up feeling seen and heard for who she is.

Second (and this is an important point for me to claim) I need to be much more proactive in arranging for childcare on Melissa’s teaching weekends. Here’s why: I can’t be fully present with Ella for three-days nor am I supposed to. In order for me to be successful at the first point, I have to create a healthy balance between my time with Ella and my time alone and/or with other adults.

Clearly, three-days of mostly solo fathering is too much.

Here are a couple of questions for you parents out there:

Are there any ways that you encourage invisibility in your children? Are there times that you ignore your kids or tune them out or plop them down in front of the TV?

I want you to just notice without judging. Remember, awareness is the first step to change.

Now if you did notice situations in which you were not as fully present with your child as you would like, ask yourself, “What do I need in order to change this?”

Do you need more childcare? Do you need more help from your partner? Do you need to call on family and friends more often? Do you need to explain to your child that there are times when you will be focused and present with him or her and other times when you will be focused on other things?

What will enable you to be fully present with your child?

It’s not an easy question. I certainly don’t have a simple answer. But just by asking the question, there is a much better chance that your child will feel seen.

Posted by Edward Mills | Filed Under Parenting, Personal Growth

My Daughter, My Abundance Teacher

A Great Law of Attraction Story

Acting On Inner Guidance

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My guidance system has been on lately, but it’s been communicating with me in strange ways. Well, that’s not completely accurate. My guidance system has been communicating very clearly, I just haven’t always been acting on the information.

Take this morning, for example.

I got up at 5:00am – I’m back on the 30-day 5:00 am trial – meditated, stretched and exercised, took a shower and shaved. My plan, at that point was to zip over to the office for about 90-minutes before I had to take Ella to pre-school at nine. On Wednesdays my wife gets up with Ella and gets her ready.

They were both still asleep when I decided to go to the office. I didn’t want to go upstairs because of the chance that Ella would hear me and wake up. Fortunately there were some clean clothes in a hamper waiting to go upstairs. I didn’t have any shoes downstairs, but I figured I could wear my slippers just to head into the office for a bit. My feet would be nice and comfy as I wrote.

As I got dressed I began feeling odd. Something wasn’t right about this plan, but I couldn’t figure out what. Instead of stopping and checking in I pushed against the feeling. The thoughts I kept having were along the lines of “I’ve got to get out of the house before they wake up, otherwise I’ll get roped into getting Ella ready for school.”

Not a great thought or a great feeling. And that probably would have been a really good time to stop and breathe and see what was really going on. But I didn’t. I grabbed my stuff and headed towards the door. When I got to the kitchen, two of our cats, Rasta and Sasha, were meowing insistently and staring at their empty bowls.

“Great,” I thought. “More needy little creatures.”

Another interesting thought and another clear sign that something was amiss in my emotional/vibrational offering. But instead of stopping and checking in, I grabbed a can of food, plopped a spoonful down into each of their bowls, and headed out the door.

“Ahh. Freedom.” I had made it. I was on my way to the office where I would have about an hour to write and get a head start on the day’s work.

Alas, it was not meant to be. When I arrived at the office I saw that in my haste to get out of the house I had grabbed my wife’s key ring, which, unfortunately, does not have the keys to my office on it.

At that point I got it. I realized that I had been pushing the river: Against what I was still not sure. But clearly the Universe had different plans for me than I did. And with that awareness I settled into a more relaxed space.

Arriving home at 7:45 I found Melissa and Ella still asleep. It was definitely time to get up if they wanted to be ready to leave by 8:50. I went upstairs and let Melissa know the time. She said, “I don’t care.”

“But it’s your morning to get up with Ella.” I replied.

“No it’s not.”

“It’s Wednesday.” I reminded her.

“Oh shâ€¦” She said, and went on to explain that she had been up from 1:00am until 4:00am and could I get Ella ready this morning.

Of course I could. And I did. And as I was getting Ella ready I felt a wave of amazement wash over me. How incredibly intelligent this Universe is, I thought. From the moment I decided to go into the office, this morning, I knew I was not meant to do so. The reasoning behind that knowledge was not clear to me until after the fact. But the knowing had been there all along.

What if I had successfully made it to the office? Would I have arrived home at 8:45 to a still sleeping Melissa and Ella? Possibly. I certainly would have arrived home to a very stressed out and exhausted Melissa.

Once again, I’ve been given another opportunity to see just how powerful my guidance system really is. Now if I can just started trusting and acting on that guidance a bit more, I’ll be in great shape. I could have saved myself a bunch of stress and time if I had just trusted my guidance and let go of the need to be at the office.

Soon come!

Posted by Edward Mills | Filed Under Inner Guidance, Intuition, Parenting, Personal Growth, Relationships

A Missed Opportunity

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This morning, after Ella and I woke up, I went into the kitchen to get her cereal ready. I noticed that she was taking a long time to catch up. Usually, she’s right behind, hungry and ready to dig into her first breakfast after a long night of sleep. I poked my head out of the kitchen door to see where she was and saw her standing by the TV holding something in her hand. I couldn’t quite make out what it was: a stray piece of clothing perhaps, or one of her toys that had a string attached to the end.

“What do you have, Ella?” I asked as I walked out towards her. She just stood there. And then the shape came into clarity and I saw what it was. “Put it down, Ella.” I said quite firmly, perhaps too firmly, as I realized she was holding a big dead rat!

When we lived out in the country our cats would bring us “gifts” on a fairly regular basis: gophers, mice, moles, birds, all kinds of treasures from the wild world. So much so, in fact, that we had to watch where we walked at night, having stepped on more than one of their “gifts.” But since we’ve moved into town, they’ve become a bit lazy, and there are fewer opportunities to catch little critters. So we’ve gotten used to a house that is free of dead rodents.

So seeing Ella holding a dead rat took me a bit by surprise. After Ella dropped it, I told her that we needed to take it back outside and then wash our hands. And so we did.

End of story? Unfortunately, yes. After I dropped Ella off at pre-school it dawned on me that the Universe had just provided me with a perfect opportunity to speak to Ella about death. If you read my post from last night about The Weight of Death you might remember that one of the questions I’m asking right now is how to find the words to speak with her about the impending death of her grandfather. And this morning I was truly given a gift, a “teaching moment” as they say in the education world. And I totally missed it.

I was so caught up in the busyness of the morning, that, instead of seeing this unusual occurrence as an opportunity, I perceived it as an unexpected, and unwanted additional “task.”

I wonder how often these unexpected “tasks” that upset our normal routine are truly gifts from the Universe, opportunities to learn and grow. More often than not, would be my guess. But we are so focused on maintaining our normal life that we miss these opportunities. We are so focused on completing the tasks on our to-do list that, when a monkey wrench gets thrown in to our lives, we immediately look for a way to dispose of it, not realizing that it’s exactly the tool we needed to finish one of our other tasks!

So all I have to say about this morning’s rat is, “Thank you Universe for sending me such a perfect gift. I’m sorry I was not awake enough to take advantage of it. Next time, I intend to see the gift for what it is.”

Posted by Edward Mills | Filed Under Death & Dying, Inner Guidance, Parenting, Personal Growth

5:00 am for 30 days – update

Using The Book of Positive Aspects

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My wife left last night to spend what is most likely going to be her last week with her father. It’s been interesting for me to watch the massive difference in my overall energy level between last week and this week.Last week my energy was way up. I was feeling great about the writing I was doing for this blog, the curriculum I was developing for my courses, and the extra time I was getting to do all of that by getting up at 5:00 am.

Today I am feeling heavy, scattered, unfocused, tired, and physically fatigued – as if I recently had a strenuous workout.

What happened? Why the big shift?

Here’s my take on it. I’m going to first give you the non-deliberate creator perspective. Then I’ll go back and explore how I am reframing it to, hopefully, shift my energy level.

First, with Melissa gone, this next week has the potential to be very full. In addition to my projects, there is the added responsibility of being taking care of Ella alone. This includes getting up with her each morning, getting her fed, dressed, lunch packed, and off to pre-school. It includes arranging childcare for two early morning meetings – 6:00 am – and at least one evening. It involves bringing Ella to a music class, a meeting with a possible new school, and a physical therapist appointment. It also includes spending the entire weekend with Ella, or calling around to find people to watch her. It also means that the early morning time I have been so enjoying since I started waking up at 5:00 may get put on hold if I have to stay in bed to ensure that Ella doesn’t wake up too early.

The second piece in this involves an old belief system I inherited from a long line of patriarchal families that tells me that the “father does not take care of the children.” Well being a single dad for a week flies directly in the face of that belief system and definitely triggers old emotional issues around parental roles and responsibilities.

So that’s a quick exploration of the thoughts and beliefs that are contributing to this lowered energy. Now lets explore them a bit and look for the possible alternative beliefs.

Did you hear the victim tone in the description of what I believe could happen this week? Certainly it all is potentially true. But it’s true because I make it true. And how do I make it true? By focusing on it, by believing it. When I allow myself to get caught up in the feelings of “what if this happens,” I almost guarantee that it will happen.

This is another example, with a slightly different twist on the Being Right or Feeling Good theme I explored a few days ago.

From a Law of Attraction perspective, I know that I have the power to determine how this week unfolds. I certainly have the power to determine how I respond to whatever unfolding occurs. By focusing on all of the things that could be “negative” all I do is give them more fuel to manifest in reality.

The trick – though it’s no trick, but actually a very powerful tool – is to get clear about all the positive things that I would like to see happen this week. In the Book, Ask and It Is Given, this technique is called The Book of Positive Aspects. It’s a tool to shift your perspective from what you see in front of you that you don’t want, to all the positive things you can imagine, things that you do want.

Here’s an example of a page from a Book of Positive Aspects about my upcoming week.

At the top of the page I write: The upcoming week – 9/20 – 9/26.

Then I begin to list all of the potential, positive, good feeling things about this week. Everything I can think of. These include:

I get to spend time alone with Ella.
Richard Thompson is playing at the Celtic Festival on Friday night and I can go see him.
Ella and I can go out to the beach or take a long hike this weekend.
I get to go with Ella to Music Together on Friday.
I’m really excited about the response to my special birthday offer for the Internet Marketing for Deliberate Creators course, and now I get to put the finishing touches on the curriculum for the first class next Wednesday.
It’s been so easy finding people who are thrilled to spend some extra time with Ella so that I can have some free time.
I love the perfect balance in my business this week between time spent with private clients and time spent writing and working on other projects.
The weather is spectacular!
I’ve gotten some great birthday gifts this week, and I’ve heard that there are more to come!
I love that I’ve created a work life where I have the flexibility and freedom to give Melissa the opportunity to go see her father.

That’s a sample of some of the things that in my Book of Positive Aspects about this week. As I write them, I feel my energy shifting. I sense the lightness, the excitement, the joy from last week returning.

Reality is always subjective. And we create our reality based on the subjects upon which we are focused. Focus on what feels good and you get more of that. Focus on what feels not quite so good and you get more of that. Focus on what feels pretty crappy and guess what…you get a whole bunch more crap in your life!

So my intention for this week, is to spend time every day focusing on my Book of Positive Aspects. By remembering all the wonderful things that are possible this week, I open the doorway to the creation of those positive things in “reality.”

Posted by Edward Mills | Filed Under Art of Allowing, Blocks, Deliberate Creation, Emotions, Law of Attraction, Parenting, Relationships, Well-Being

Being Right or Feeling Good

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“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”

Mark Twain

You may have heard the phrase, “You can either be right or be happy.” And T. Harv Ecker is fond of reminding us that we “can be right or rich.”

As Deliberate Creators, we know that our primary goal is to Feel Good. And if you’ve spent any time comparing results, you’ve probably noticed that the pursuit of being right almost never leads to a good feeling.

Here’s a quick personal example. On Saturday, my wife, daughter and I were up at Harbin Hot Springs to celebrate my birthday. At the moment the clock struck 10:00 (the time that kids are allowed into the heart-shaped warm pool) Ella was ready to go. She was, in fact, ready before my wife and I were. While Melissa was over taking a shower I decided to sit Ella down in the water, on the top step while I got undressed.

Ella was happily splashing away and playing with one of her toys when Melissa returned. Apparently she did not share my faith in Ella’s ability to remain seated on that step while I got ready. She immediately went over and put a protective arm around Ella while simultaneously giving me one of “those” looks. If you’re married, you probably know what I mean by one of “those” looks! What ensued after that would not qualify as a positive energetic exchange.

She had her opinion, I had mine. No problem, right? Well, the problems start to come in when we both want to have it acknowledged that our opinion is “right.”

After we managed to all get into the pool, I went to my “neutral corner” and leaned back against the side, closed my eyes and began soaking up the soothing energy of the water on my body and the sun on my face. In that space I quickly recognized my need to have Melissa understand that I was “right.” I wanted her to recognize that Ella was capable of sitting on the step for 2-mintues without falling in.

The moment I entered the space of needing to be right I cut myself off from Source and from the positive feeling that accompanies that connection. It most definitely did NOT feel good to be battling over the best way to deal with Ella around the pool.

In reality, the truth, in this case, as in most instances of “I’m right, you’re wrong” is most likely somewhere in the middle. I probably give Ella a little too much freedom and Melissa is probably a bit overprotective. But that’s not the point.

The point is that if I want to feel good, I must let go of my desire to be right. Right is irrelevant to the Universe. Right does not make one bit of difference when it comes to feeling and vibration. And it is our vibrational offering that determines how the Universe responds to us. If needing to be right takes you out of a place of feeling good, then that need to be right is causing you to attract more of what you don’t want.

Here’s the bottom line: You can be right or you can feel good. When you’re right you will tend to attract people with whom you will need to battle to prove that you are right.

When you let go of needing to be right and allow yourself to stay anchored in a good feeling place you will naturally attract more good things into your life.

Which do you prefer?

Posted by Edward Mills | Filed Under Art of Allowing, Deliberate Creation, Law of Attraction, Parenting, Relationships

5:00 am for 30 days

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Today is the second day of my 30-day trial of waking up at 5:00am. So far so good!

Why five? Five gives me at least 1 and up to 2 full hours before my daughter wakes up. And they are prime time hours for me. I am best in the morning. I meditate most clearly, I write most coherently, and I feel most alive. I love being awake as the rest of the world arises, as the sky lightens, as the birds begin their calls, and even as the neighbors begin turning on their lights and getting in their cars to head off to work.

There is something about witnessing the transition from night to day that seems to fuel me through the rest of my day. I’m reminded of the Rumi poem:

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.

You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.

There are people moving back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.

The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.

I want to be awake for the secrets the dawn breeze has to tell me. I want to feel the clarity inherent in the pre-dawn silence and carry that clarity into my day. I want to be awake at dawn so that I can know more clearly what it is that I really want and ask for it in the silence of the dawn.

From a purely practical standpoint these extra hours give me time to meditate, exercise, write, get outside and honor my need for solitude. Once my day officially “begins” I find it very easy to neglect these things that are critical elements of my self-care program.

These morning hours are “found” time or free time. I can do what I want with these hours without hearing the distant drum of responsibility beating in the background.

The question you might be asking at this point is: why have I not chosen to rise early before this?

It’s a great question, and the answer is that I was stuck in an outdated and no longer necessary pattern that began when my daughter was born.

For the first 18-months of my daughter’s life, our sleep patterns were very erratic. For better or worse, we did not enforce a sleep schedule on Ella, allowing her to nap if she wanted and go to sleep when she was tired. This obviously led to some late nights and early mornings – quite a few very early mornings! But overall, Ella has learned to regulate her own sleep patterns and now goes to bed consistently between 7:30 – 9:00 and wakes up between 6:00 – 7:00.

But even though Ella has been sleeping fairly consistently for the past year, I never broke out of the fear-based pattern of needing to sleep as late as I could to make up for her potential middle-of-the-night hungry time or arising, ready to play, at 4:30. So for the past few months I’ve probably been getting far too much sleep.

The catalyst for this decision to wake at 5:00 was Steve Pavlina’s excellent article on how to become an early riser. He lays out a straightforward method for becoming an early riser. The bottom line being, don’t force yourself into bed when you’re not tired. Rather, listen to your body and learn to know when it is time for sleep.

It makes total sense. Without Steve’s guidelines I probably would have forced myself to bed at 9:00 last night. Instead, starting at about 9:30, I unwound from the day and read for a while until I felt sleep beginning to sneak up on me. I went upstairs to bed at 10:15 and was asleep before 10:30. Waking up this morning at 5:00 was not a problem. I’m very interested to see how this plays out over the next 30-days. I’ll keep you posted.

Posted by Edward Mills | Filed Under Parenting, Physical Body, Well-Being

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Have A Great Night, Wink Wink

How Not To Raise An Invisible Child

My Daughter, My Abundance Teacher

A Great Law of Attraction Story

Acting On Inner Guidance

A Missed Opportunity

5:00 am for 30 days – update

Using The Book of Positive Aspects

Being Right or Feeling Good

5:00 am for 30 days

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