Merry Christmas. This is typically the season where some people think they want MORE.
Well, here is how to get MORE anything. More money from your
business, more love, more friends, more invitations, just, simply, more. More of anything you want.
I have to say a disclaimer here. I didn’t invent this method. It’s pretty well-known in some circles, but somehow I don’t see it out in the mainstream much, so I thought I’d share it here on LinkedIn.
Table of Contents:
Start by counting up everything awesome and positive that you have. Do it in your head. Do it out loud. Do it in writing. You might even do it on Facebook or LinkedIn for some things. Just start writing and listing all those amazing things you have.
And when I say “everything,” I mean everything good. If there is something specific that you want, then start counting up the things you have that are like that.
For example, let’s say you want more better party invitations. You start off by saying (and even better, writing) “I love being invited!” every time you get invited to something. It does not matter what it is that you have been invited to. It only matters how you feel about it. And you can choose to feel great. If you can’t choose to feel great at the beginning of this, that’s fine. Fake it.
Let’s say some dude who you don’t want to date invites you out and it makes you feel creeped out, fine. But instead of talking up how gross it al is, you start talking about hey, you’re getting invited places finally, and you choose to feel great that you got an invitation, because you can now write “I love being invited!” and do the exercise I’m assigning you.
If not even the creeps are inviting you, then fine. Look at the commercial flyers. They’re inviting you down to their Saturday sale. City hall is inviting you to a community coffee event. Whatever. Find invitations, and just be glad that you got them (advanced tip: even experiment with accepting them!)
As a single mother who has almost always worked at home, for many years I suffered a lot of sadness during holiday season when everyone else was getting invited everywhere. I used to beg people to please, just think of me all alone there and please, invite me. Mostly, people didn’t. And I kept thinking “I never get invited everywhere.”
This year I have had AMAZING party invitations beyond my wildest expectations. It’s been absolutely wonderful. Like warm, delicious carolling parties, and exotic dinner parties in mansions, even interesting, nicely mannered dates. And what’s the change? I started saying “I love being invited,” on my facebook page. I started believing that I was invited. And then I didn’t worry about it any more, and it happened.
Let’s say you want better business. Step one. Count up the good stuff.
Note:
This is not an exercise in counting up your good clients and your bad clients and writing two lists. Forget the bad clients. Pretend they don’t exist (and, really, wouldn’t your business be better if the bad clients vanished? Or if they stayed, but their bad behaviour vanished?). You are not counting any bad stuff in this step.
Only list and count the good stuff, the stuff you want more of. Those bad clients who plagued you in 2014 might cross your mind, but do not write them down. Write down all of those clients and all those types of behaviours that you DO want more of, and be grateful for them.
An example: I used to be a schoolteacher. You know who you go to sleep thinking about and stress out about and wake up thinking about, until you learn to get control of it? The problem kid. You have 28 wonderful kids that want to please you, and one bundle of trouble, and unfortunately the one that sticks in your head is the criminal.
It’s the same with your clients, right? You think about the jerks who deliver late and then make you meet their ridiculous deadlines. You think about the accounts who haven’t paid up. We do have to do this to some extent, until the problem is solved, but here’s the thing: you choose how often you think about those.
You choose whether you’re going to worry yourself sick, or deny those bad clients the rent in your head and invite your nice clients to the party in your head, instead. The ones who paid their accounts early. Who always give you ample time to do your job. Who compliment you.
Think of them!
YOU rule your thoughts
What we are only barely learning to do in North America is to control our thoughts. For so long, we have turned our thinking over to the television and the radio. Some people are still very stuck in that mindset. The news reader tells you that times are very bad, and you believe him. Some talk show host tells you it’s really really hard to get ahead, and you repeat that garbage phrase over and over again.
Well, stop it. Do not repeat negative garbage other people say. You choose what comes out of your mouth. You choose what thoughts you keep in your head. Likewise, you choose what stuff you get to dismiss and let flow away from you like water.
Not really. You can fake it ‘til you make it by focussing on the positive situations. You don’t have to lie, simply choose not to talk about the negative stuff.
But there’s another brilliant strategy. Let’s take a dating world example again. Instead of saying something like “I always attract the wrong sort of women/men” (a pretty common thing that unsuccessful dating people say), say “I used to always attract the wrong sort of partner, but I am attracting much better people now.”
And that’s not a lie. Choose to pay attention to the awesome people you are attracting – maybe it was just one kind person who sat beside you in a meeting last week – and ignore the people who don’t make you feel good. Sure, you might still attract the wrong kind of person, but you can choose not to give them your attention in your head, and the less thought attention you give them, the faster they’ll vanish.
Figuring out how to reframe stuff you don’t want to pick out the things you do want from each situation, to make those good parts grow, takes a little practice, but you’ll soon get the hang of it. Here’s a little chart of examples to start you off.
And again, yes, you will still have negative thoughts, but that’s okay. Don’t say these things if you feel they are outrageous and you can’t buy that they’re true – that will not work. What you need to do is find positive ways to frame your experiences to help create better future experiences, and you need to believe the things you say.
Don’t say them out loud, and don’t write them – or, if you absolutely have to write them, then burn or tear up the paper right away, deciding that you are choosing to put those situations in the past. Trust me, this works.
So, it’s better when you start to believe (and you will!), but for now, fake it.
* Write down the great stuff.
* Talk up the great stuff. Spread all these great stories about the client who treated you really well – those stories will attract more great clients.
Actually, this is where ignorance is bliss comes in handy.
The happy idiot who thinks things are fine all the time is actually creating more happiness for himself.
The “clever” people who claim that they can see so-called “reality” are actually shooting themselves in the foot. Have you noticed how people who say “reality” almost always mean something negative that they believe they “have to” suck up? Analyzing everything that’s wrong in the world actually just makes you more aware of the wrong in the world and creates more wrong, in your world.
So your task is to stop looking for all you haven’t got. When you see the holes and the problems and the needs for more, if it’s something you need to address for business purposes, then take the time write those down, during the compartment in your day that you set aside for that negative, analytical business.
But shrink the time that you spend identifying what you have not got and what needs fixing. Start actively, intelligently, intentionally focussing on the positive things that are going well. And innovate ways to create more of that good stuff.
Whatever you focus your intention on is what you will create and what will grow in your life. That’s true whether you are powerfully, realistically focussing on positive outcomes, or choosing to mindlessly wallow in negativity.
Many people have noticed this effect when they have said “the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer.” How have some people bucked this trend? Cynical people will tell you that it’s “luck.” More likely, it’s attitude.
Rich people, (luckily, you can say it if you want to) can easily see they have money rolling in, so they expect that to keep happening. People who are struggling along through life can see all their troubles, and they expect more troubles. So… they get more troubles.
How do you break that cycle? You fake it til you make it. People who succeed:
* dream that they can do better.
* visualize it actually happening – now, in real time.
* and then it does.
You need to really believe that you can achieve what you say you can. Fake it until you make it, but take steps you can handle. Take steps you really know that you can do. Maybe your first successes are a hundred bucks, or maybe they’re ten thousand.
There is no limit on what success looks like, except your own imagination.
You start writing down “I receive many incredible gifts.” This phrasing is pretty easy to start believing, because you can start counting every little thing as an incredible gift. You can reframe anything into incredible. That’s an easy one on the "fake it ‘til you make it" scale. And every time you write it, every time you say it, every time you really believe that some little surprise you received was incredible, you make more stuff come to you.
Or, if you are still stuck in materialism and what you think you really want is expensive stuff from everyone, you could write “I receive many costly gifts.” For the fake it ‘til you make it part, you might need to reframe “costly” so that you can count up some actual cases of this happening. For example, my the beautiful jester in the cover photo is the first gift my son ever gave me. He bought it for me with all of his allowance when we went to a Christmas concert at the Jack Singer Concert Hall when he was maybe 5 or 6 years old. It was on sale, so he could afford it.
The pot behind it is a rosemary plant (for memory) that my friend bought for her husband’s funeral. Certainly that was a costly affair for her.
So were these items costly? I could say “oh, man, I never get presents that are worth anything more than ten bucks.” And guess what? I would keep getting only ten dollar presents forever, if I thought and talked that way.
Let’s say you do think that way. Poor you, but you can get over it if you want to. Just make sure you never say that out loud, or Heaven forbid, write it down. And when you have a thought like that, quickly replace it with a more successful one.
So is that jester worth ten dollars? No. That is a gift that someone bought for me with two full weeks’ income. Imagine if other people started buying me gifts worth two full weeks income. That is certainly a costly gift.
And is that rosemary plant in its beautiful red pot worth ten dollars? Or is it worth all the friendship, love, caring, and attention of a widow who is my friend? It’s certainly a costly and lavish gift, and she chose to give it to me. Imagine if other people started buying me gifts with all the love and attention that went into that. That is certainly a costly gift.
The same principle applies to business
Never, ever, say out loud that you seem stuck at a certain level, whether that’s financial or prestige or whatever ladder you want to climb. Every time you observe that “man, I’m only getting ten dollar gifts,” or “geez, all I get are ten thousand dollar contracts, and I want bigger ones,” immediately tear up that thought and replace it with another one.
Even if you feel that you are lying completely to yourself, get out your most beautiful pen, and your most beautiful paper (I actually buy special beautiful paper just to write these beautiful thoughts on), and write something positive. Louise Hay suggests “my income is constantly increasing.” (She’s gone from broke and broken to inspirational and many times a milllionaire, so I think she’s got street cred here.)
Then I happened on this method, and I understood how much it works for others. I started to try it. I woke up in the morning, alone, desolate, unmadeloveto, same as I always hated, and I got up and I sat at my table alone and told myself I wasn’t alone because my cat was there with me, and I boiled the kettle and I got out my special golden paper and I wrote down I am loved I am loved I am loved. It was only my cat and my kid loving me, but I wrote it every day.
Then I carried on with other gratitudes, and some days they started off pretty pathetic – well, I like my hair. And my landlords are really kind. And someone was nice to me at church last week… but you know, you start writing down a few things that you’re thankful for, and just like the Grinch’s heart, you’ll find that they grow and they grow. They’ll grow three times that day. And three times the next, and I promise you, it grows exponentially. I’ve lived it.
I still haven’t found my mate, that one true person who will adore me forever, but I don’t think about it as much any more. I feel love all around me every day, and it feels good. It comes from my yoga students, it comes (still) from my cat, from my son, from my friends… and I have more loving friends around me. More time with great people and less time with less loving people. It just happens naturally. I really feel the love. And because of that, I have more friends, by magnitudes. [I have the same number of cat, though. Just the one. J]
In the example above, I thought the script should read that Scene One was to fall in love with a good, courageous, considerate, brilliant man and get married. When Scene One didn’t happen as the script was written, everything else was wrong. Since we can’t, actually, dictate life and the Universe to bow down and obey the scripts we thought we had planned, the only way to find happiness was to really, truly, throw out that script. As brilliant a script as that is, it wasn’t serving me.
It’s the same with Christmas. As a society, we’ve got this script of what Christmas is “supposed to look like.” It hardly ever does. People are disappointed with each other for not marching to their version of “the script” and so they start talking about how all the other actors are acting wrong and not matching the script. And then the other actors argue back. And then, even worse, someone takes on the role of director and marches all the marionettes around the stage, insisting on this or that behaviour. Reasons range from guilt “how could you do this to me, my own child!” to “we have to do it that way. We have always done it that way.”
And then everyone is miserable, because nobody can succeed in matching that ideal script in everyone else’s head.
So just throw out the script. Improvise.
Take what you see at face value, and pick out the little checkmark positive thing you can see in it. Write it, say it!
Someone got you a lame gift? Dude, they got you a gift. Checkmark it.
How about, the person you want to spend the holiday with isn’t with you? That’s what I have right now, and so I’m writing this article for you. Well, when will they be with you next? Decide that will be wonderful, and then rewrite this scene on the stage without them in it.
Here’s the script you’re living. You can crush your heart with pain over the script not being followed – and I know, personally, that it is painfully harsh when stuff happens like you don’t get to be with your child on Christmas, or the family that you are with do not treat you with the kindness and care you wrote in your script – I know how that is. But throw out the script, and take the situation you have on the stage, and improvise. Do the best you can for the audience with the props and actors you’ve got during the time that you have.
How about your family is there, but they aren’t acting the way you want? Well, are they there? They’re there! I bet if you just started loving up that they were there, you could make your invented irritation at them not matching your script go away. Try it.
How about when someone you want to love you better, doesn’t? Oh, so many tears when people don’t match our love scripts. Same prescription, though. Here’s your stage. Here are the props and the people you have RIGHT NOW – what can you do with that? Throw out that beautiful, poetic, passionate kiss at the end scene that you had, and rewrite.
Over the holidays, start writing notes to people who have meant something to you this year – whether it's an old friend or someone you just met this year.
Tell them what they meant to you and that you were glad to meet them.
No further agenda. Just do that.
You are doing this, feeling awesome about the people you already have, because you want to meet more awesome people. You don’t need to say this to your contacts. You don’t need to ask them to do anything. All you need to do is say some version of, “thank you for who you are, the inspiration you give me, for your way of being and for what you do for me just by existing.”
You will be glad that you did, and so will they.
Or “thank you for your excellent business. We love your interesting projects and we are very grateful for your prompt and excellent payment of our invoices.” Guess what you’ll get more of? That.
Expect it to take several weeks. Start with the ones that are at the top of your mind, and you will find that as you're thinking of all the awesome things that happened to you last year, other smaller awesome things that also happened will come to the top of your mind.
So you will remember other people that you would like to write to say thank you. Do that! No time limit on this activity, but end-of-year, start-of-year is a traditional time for it and a great way to decide what you want more of in the new year.
Louise Hay You Can Heal Your Life and a little iTunes download called Receiving Prosperity are two game-changing read/listens. And pretty much anything by Louise Hay.
The Secret, by Rhonda Byrne, of course. Book, Audiobook, video, however you want to get it in. A digestible package of a lot of ancient wisdom that works!
I have to say a disclaimer here. I didn’t invent this method. It’s pretty well-known in some circles, but somehow I don’t see it out in the mainstream much, so I thought I’d share it here on LinkedIn.
Table of Contents:
- Start by Counting Everything You Have
- But there’s a trick to this
- How to nip it in the bud in social situations
- The hard part
- Know You’ve Already Got It
- How to Get More Presents (and more business)
- How to Get More Love
- Start Now! Free Trial!
- References
1. Start by Counting Everything You Have
Start by counting up everything awesome and positive that you have. Do it in your head. Do it out loud. Do it in writing. You might even do it on Facebook or LinkedIn for some things. Just start writing and listing all those amazing things you have.
And when I say “everything,” I mean everything good. If there is something specific that you want, then start counting up the things you have that are like that.
For example, let’s say you want more better party invitations. You start off by saying (and even better, writing) “I love being invited!” every time you get invited to something. It does not matter what it is that you have been invited to. It only matters how you feel about it. And you can choose to feel great. If you can’t choose to feel great at the beginning of this, that’s fine. Fake it.
Let’s say some dude who you don’t want to date invites you out and it makes you feel creeped out, fine. But instead of talking up how gross it al is, you start talking about hey, you’re getting invited places finally, and you choose to feel great that you got an invitation, because you can now write “I love being invited!” and do the exercise I’m assigning you.
If not even the creeps are inviting you, then fine. Look at the commercial flyers. They’re inviting you down to their Saturday sale. City hall is inviting you to a community coffee event. Whatever. Find invitations, and just be glad that you got them (advanced tip: even experiment with accepting them!)
As a single mother who has almost always worked at home, for many years I suffered a lot of sadness during holiday season when everyone else was getting invited everywhere. I used to beg people to please, just think of me all alone there and please, invite me. Mostly, people didn’t. And I kept thinking “I never get invited everywhere.”
This year I have had AMAZING party invitations beyond my wildest expectations. It’s been absolutely wonderful. Like warm, delicious carolling parties, and exotic dinner parties in mansions, even interesting, nicely mannered dates. And what’s the change? I started saying “I love being invited,” on my facebook page. I started believing that I was invited. And then I didn’t worry about it any more, and it happened.
But there’s a trick to this
You need to learn to let the negative go, and this goes against our instincts, and against our training. We seem to always be preparing for disaster and counting up the worst things that could happen. Know what that does? Makes more worse things happen.Let’s say you want better business. Step one. Count up the good stuff.
Note:
This is not an exercise in counting up your good clients and your bad clients and writing two lists. Forget the bad clients. Pretend they don’t exist (and, really, wouldn’t your business be better if the bad clients vanished? Or if they stayed, but their bad behaviour vanished?). You are not counting any bad stuff in this step.
Only list and count the good stuff, the stuff you want more of. Those bad clients who plagued you in 2014 might cross your mind, but do not write them down. Write down all of those clients and all those types of behaviours that you DO want more of, and be grateful for them.
An example: I used to be a schoolteacher. You know who you go to sleep thinking about and stress out about and wake up thinking about, until you learn to get control of it? The problem kid. You have 28 wonderful kids that want to please you, and one bundle of trouble, and unfortunately the one that sticks in your head is the criminal.
It’s the same with your clients, right? You think about the jerks who deliver late and then make you meet their ridiculous deadlines. You think about the accounts who haven’t paid up. We do have to do this to some extent, until the problem is solved, but here’s the thing: you choose how often you think about those.
You choose whether you’re going to worry yourself sick, or deny those bad clients the rent in your head and invite your nice clients to the party in your head, instead. The ones who paid their accounts early. Who always give you ample time to do your job. Who compliment you.
Think of them!
YOU rule your thoughts
What we are only barely learning to do in North America is to control our thoughts. For so long, we have turned our thinking over to the television and the radio. Some people are still very stuck in that mindset. The news reader tells you that times are very bad, and you believe him. Some talk show host tells you it’s really really hard to get ahead, and you repeat that garbage phrase over and over again.
Well, stop it. Do not repeat negative garbage other people say. You choose what comes out of your mouth. You choose what thoughts you keep in your head. Likewise, you choose what stuff you get to dismiss and let flow away from you like water.
How to nip it in the bud in social situations
And what about when negative stuff comes up in conversation? When a colleague starts talking about all their unpaying clients, or worse, gossipping about all of your unpaying clients? Are you supposed to lie?Not really. You can fake it ‘til you make it by focussing on the positive situations. You don’t have to lie, simply choose not to talk about the negative stuff.
But there’s another brilliant strategy. Let’s take a dating world example again. Instead of saying something like “I always attract the wrong sort of women/men” (a pretty common thing that unsuccessful dating people say), say “I used to always attract the wrong sort of partner, but I am attracting much better people now.”
And that’s not a lie. Choose to pay attention to the awesome people you are attracting – maybe it was just one kind person who sat beside you in a meeting last week – and ignore the people who don’t make you feel good. Sure, you might still attract the wrong kind of person, but you can choose not to give them your attention in your head, and the less thought attention you give them, the faster they’ll vanish.
Figuring out how to reframe stuff you don’t want to pick out the things you do want from each situation, to make those good parts grow, takes a little practice, but you’ll soon get the hang of it. Here’s a little chart of examples to start you off.
Chart of common things that people say that prevent them from getting the good stuff
In the right hand column are things that you can say instead.| You used to say | Instead, now you say |
| “People never listen to me.” | “People listen to me more than they used to do.” |
| “I never meet the right kind of people.” | “I used to have a hard time meeting the right people, but it’s getting better all the time,” or “I meet really interesting, kind, considerate, and mannerly people.” |
| “There’s never enough time.” | “I have all the time I want and need to do everything I want and need to do.” |
| “Life is hard.” | “Life is a delight.” |
| “I don’t have enough money.” | “I can always find the resources I need.” |
| “I am not healthy enough.” | “I am getting healthier every day.” |
| “I can never get what I want.” | “I usually get what I want.” |
And again, yes, you will still have negative thoughts, but that’s okay. Don’t say these things if you feel they are outrageous and you can’t buy that they’re true – that will not work. What you need to do is find positive ways to frame your experiences to help create better future experiences, and you need to believe the things you say.
Don’t say them out loud, and don’t write them – or, if you absolutely have to write them, then burn or tear up the paper right away, deciding that you are choosing to put those situations in the past. Trust me, this works.
The hard part
Tha hard part, until you get the hang of it, is believing. When you have been used to seeing all of the deficits and things you do not have, when you have been trained to look for places that need improvement, it can be very hard to simply believe that things are awesome.So, it’s better when you start to believe (and you will!), but for now, fake it.
* Write down the great stuff.
* Talk up the great stuff. Spread all these great stories about the client who treated you really well – those stories will attract more great clients.
2. Know You’ve Already Got It
This is the tricky bit, especially for analytical people. If you’ve been trained in the negative – and in North America, we nearly all have been, then you need to actively, forcefully retrain yourself.Actually, this is where ignorance is bliss comes in handy.
The happy idiot who thinks things are fine all the time is actually creating more happiness for himself.
The “clever” people who claim that they can see so-called “reality” are actually shooting themselves in the foot. Have you noticed how people who say “reality” almost always mean something negative that they believe they “have to” suck up? Analyzing everything that’s wrong in the world actually just makes you more aware of the wrong in the world and creates more wrong, in your world.
So your task is to stop looking for all you haven’t got. When you see the holes and the problems and the needs for more, if it’s something you need to address for business purposes, then take the time write those down, during the compartment in your day that you set aside for that negative, analytical business.
But shrink the time that you spend identifying what you have not got and what needs fixing. Start actively, intelligently, intentionally focussing on the positive things that are going well. And innovate ways to create more of that good stuff.
Whatever you focus your intention on is what you will create and what will grow in your life. That’s true whether you are powerfully, realistically focussing on positive outcomes, or choosing to mindlessly wallow in negativity.
Many people have noticed this effect when they have said “the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer.” How have some people bucked this trend? Cynical people will tell you that it’s “luck.” More likely, it’s attitude.
Rich people, (luckily, you can say it if you want to) can easily see they have money rolling in, so they expect that to keep happening. People who are struggling along through life can see all their troubles, and they expect more troubles. So… they get more troubles.
How do you break that cycle? You fake it til you make it. People who succeed:
* dream that they can do better.
* visualize it actually happening – now, in real time.
* and then it does.
You need to really believe that you can achieve what you say you can. Fake it until you make it, but take steps you can handle. Take steps you really know that you can do. Maybe your first successes are a hundred bucks, or maybe they’re ten thousand.
There is no limit on what success looks like, except your own imagination.
3. How to Get More Presents (and, more business)
So, how do you use this technology to get more presents?You start writing down “I receive many incredible gifts.” This phrasing is pretty easy to start believing, because you can start counting every little thing as an incredible gift. You can reframe anything into incredible. That’s an easy one on the "fake it ‘til you make it" scale. And every time you write it, every time you say it, every time you really believe that some little surprise you received was incredible, you make more stuff come to you.
Or, if you are still stuck in materialism and what you think you really want is expensive stuff from everyone, you could write “I receive many costly gifts.” For the fake it ‘til you make it part, you might need to reframe “costly” so that you can count up some actual cases of this happening. For example, my the beautiful jester in the cover photo is the first gift my son ever gave me. He bought it for me with all of his allowance when we went to a Christmas concert at the Jack Singer Concert Hall when he was maybe 5 or 6 years old. It was on sale, so he could afford it.
The pot behind it is a rosemary plant (for memory) that my friend bought for her husband’s funeral. Certainly that was a costly affair for her.
So were these items costly? I could say “oh, man, I never get presents that are worth anything more than ten bucks.” And guess what? I would keep getting only ten dollar presents forever, if I thought and talked that way.
Let’s say you do think that way. Poor you, but you can get over it if you want to. Just make sure you never say that out loud, or Heaven forbid, write it down. And when you have a thought like that, quickly replace it with a more successful one.
So is that jester worth ten dollars? No. That is a gift that someone bought for me with two full weeks’ income. Imagine if other people started buying me gifts worth two full weeks income. That is certainly a costly gift.
And is that rosemary plant in its beautiful red pot worth ten dollars? Or is it worth all the friendship, love, caring, and attention of a widow who is my friend? It’s certainly a costly and lavish gift, and she chose to give it to me. Imagine if other people started buying me gifts with all the love and attention that went into that. That is certainly a costly gift.
The same principle applies to business
Never, ever, say out loud that you seem stuck at a certain level, whether that’s financial or prestige or whatever ladder you want to climb. Every time you observe that “man, I’m only getting ten dollar gifts,” or “geez, all I get are ten thousand dollar contracts, and I want bigger ones,” immediately tear up that thought and replace it with another one.
Even if you feel that you are lying completely to yourself, get out your most beautiful pen, and your most beautiful paper (I actually buy special beautiful paper just to write these beautiful thoughts on), and write something positive. Louise Hay suggests “my income is constantly increasing.” (She’s gone from broke and broken to inspirational and many times a milllionaire, so I think she’s got street cred here.)
4. How to Get More Love
Since I always thought that being loved by a husband was the first step on the path of grownupness, until a few years ago, I would have always told you, “I don’t have that. I am not loved,” because I hadn’t found my mate and was not being loved in the way I thought was in the script, that everyone deserves, the kind my parents have – the kind of love where he’ll stand beside you and never let you down. Therefore, as far as I understood, I had nothing. Life was horrible.Then I happened on this method, and I understood how much it works for others. I started to try it. I woke up in the morning, alone, desolate, unmadeloveto, same as I always hated, and I got up and I sat at my table alone and told myself I wasn’t alone because my cat was there with me, and I boiled the kettle and I got out my special golden paper and I wrote down I am loved I am loved I am loved. It was only my cat and my kid loving me, but I wrote it every day.
Then I carried on with other gratitudes, and some days they started off pretty pathetic – well, I like my hair. And my landlords are really kind. And someone was nice to me at church last week… but you know, you start writing down a few things that you’re thankful for, and just like the Grinch’s heart, you’ll find that they grow and they grow. They’ll grow three times that day. And three times the next, and I promise you, it grows exponentially. I’ve lived it.
I still haven’t found my mate, that one true person who will adore me forever, but I don’t think about it as much any more. I feel love all around me every day, and it feels good. It comes from my yoga students, it comes (still) from my cat, from my son, from my friends… and I have more loving friends around me. More time with great people and less time with less loving people. It just happens naturally. I really feel the love. And because of that, I have more friends, by magnitudes. [I have the same number of cat, though. Just the one. J]
Throw Out the Script
Why is there so much misery at Christmas?
Because we’ve been trained to run on a script.In the example above, I thought the script should read that Scene One was to fall in love with a good, courageous, considerate, brilliant man and get married. When Scene One didn’t happen as the script was written, everything else was wrong. Since we can’t, actually, dictate life and the Universe to bow down and obey the scripts we thought we had planned, the only way to find happiness was to really, truly, throw out that script. As brilliant a script as that is, it wasn’t serving me.
It’s the same with Christmas. As a society, we’ve got this script of what Christmas is “supposed to look like.” It hardly ever does. People are disappointed with each other for not marching to their version of “the script” and so they start talking about how all the other actors are acting wrong and not matching the script. And then the other actors argue back. And then, even worse, someone takes on the role of director and marches all the marionettes around the stage, insisting on this or that behaviour. Reasons range from guilt “how could you do this to me, my own child!” to “we have to do it that way. We have always done it that way.”
And then everyone is miserable, because nobody can succeed in matching that ideal script in everyone else’s head.
So just throw out the script. Improvise.
Take what you see at face value, and pick out the little checkmark positive thing you can see in it. Write it, say it!
Someone got you a lame gift? Dude, they got you a gift. Checkmark it.
How about, the person you want to spend the holiday with isn’t with you? That’s what I have right now, and so I’m writing this article for you. Well, when will they be with you next? Decide that will be wonderful, and then rewrite this scene on the stage without them in it.
Here’s the script you’re living. You can crush your heart with pain over the script not being followed – and I know, personally, that it is painfully harsh when stuff happens like you don’t get to be with your child on Christmas, or the family that you are with do not treat you with the kindness and care you wrote in your script – I know how that is. But throw out the script, and take the situation you have on the stage, and improvise. Do the best you can for the audience with the props and actors you’ve got during the time that you have.
How about your family is there, but they aren’t acting the way you want? Well, are they there? They’re there! I bet if you just started loving up that they were there, you could make your invented irritation at them not matching your script go away. Try it.
How about when someone you want to love you better, doesn’t? Oh, so many tears when people don’t match our love scripts. Same prescription, though. Here’s your stage. Here are the props and the people you have RIGHT NOW – what can you do with that? Throw out that beautiful, poetic, passionate kiss at the end scene that you had, and rewrite.
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Here’s an exercise to start with to get more awesome people in your life next year.Over the holidays, start writing notes to people who have meant something to you this year – whether it's an old friend or someone you just met this year.
Tell them what they meant to you and that you were glad to meet them.
No further agenda. Just do that.
You are doing this, feeling awesome about the people you already have, because you want to meet more awesome people. You don’t need to say this to your contacts. You don’t need to ask them to do anything. All you need to do is say some version of, “thank you for who you are, the inspiration you give me, for your way of being and for what you do for me just by existing.”
You will be glad that you did, and so will they.
Or “thank you for your excellent business. We love your interesting projects and we are very grateful for your prompt and excellent payment of our invoices.” Guess what you’ll get more of? That.
Expect it to take several weeks. Start with the ones that are at the top of your mind, and you will find that as you're thinking of all the awesome things that happened to you last year, other smaller awesome things that also happened will come to the top of your mind.
So you will remember other people that you would like to write to say thank you. Do that! No time limit on this activity, but end-of-year, start-of-year is a traditional time for it and a great way to decide what you want more of in the new year.
References
I mentioned that this isn’t really my stuff, I’m just reframing it with some of my stories in it so hopefully the message will reach more people. I would love it if you share it ‘round and if you write me some comments. J I love comments.Louise Hay You Can Heal Your Life and a little iTunes download called Receiving Prosperity are two game-changing read/listens. And pretty much anything by Louise Hay.
The Secret, by Rhonda Byrne, of course. Book, Audiobook, video, however you want to get it in. A digestible package of a lot of ancient wisdom that works!
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