Open Up Your Mind to Receive

“Today I am receptive to higher thoughts and I demonstrate greater good.” ~ www.ourabundantlife.com (Dr. Lloyd Tupper and Francine Huss)

I am so thankful for my friends at Our Abundant Life for this beautiful affirmation. Everyday they offer the most amazing quotes that create abundant living. Often, I will visit my inbox each morning to discover a “Daily Affirmation” that inspires or touches me deeply.

I appreciate your support of my blog, “A Poem A Day Brings Money My Way!” And, I thank you for telling your network of friends about it. Today, I am going to ask that you tell your friends about www.ourabundantlife.com. Their message is consistently uplifting and encouraging and I think the “Daily Affirmation” they offer is simply wonderful.

Prosperously yours,
Denise Allen

Overcoming Financial Challenges & Personal Setbacks

Perhaps you have been given a financial diagnosis that paints a grim picture for your future. Or, maybe you’ve suffered a major setback in your career and now it appears nothing will pull you out of this abyss. The Truth you must remember regardless of the condition you face is: There are no impossibilities; there are no incurables; there are no unattainables. Right now, you have the inner strength to handle whatever has appeared.

Inner strength is your inheritance as a human being. None of us is gifted with more or less strength than another person. Each of us has just what he/she needs to meet the challenges that sit before him/her.

So, calm yourself. Relax. Breathe deeply. Relax again. Close your eyes. Still your emotions. Worry, fear and self-doubt scatter your inner strength. Quieting your emotions conserves your inner strength and allows it to build up quickly. Remind yourself that there are no impossibilities; there are no incurables; there are no unattainables. You can handle whatever lies before you.

 

Suggested Spiritual Treatment for Wealth: There are no impossibilities; there are no incurables; there are no unattainables. I can handle whatever challenges I currently face!

Wealth Without Health is No Wealth At All

Everyone loves a wonderful gift. We excitedly open the package, anticipating the goodie that lies within. Let us take this approach to each day we wake up without some sickness or malady. Our health is truly our greatest gift. It allows us to move about without restriction. It is worth more than any amount of financial wealth. In fact, financial wealth in the absence of physical health is not really wealth at all. Do not take for granted the health you enjoy today. Take a moment to quietly give thanks for the fact that your body works properly.

Suggested Spiritual Treatment for Health: I am so grateful for this wonderful body. I make a conscious choice to cherish and appreciate my health. Perfect life now moves through me. With every breath I breathe, my body is renewed, my heart is uplifted and my soul is restored.

Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship. ~ Buddha

Spiritual Treatment: Works Like an Antibiotic

The word treatment is a perfect word because spiritual treatments work like an antibiotic. Just as you have medicine for the physical body, there is medicine for the mental body (or the mind). And, that medicine is the spiritual treatment.

You use spiritual treatment in the same way that you use antibiotics. When an infection first occurs, you begin taking an antibiotic. As the infection retreats, you continue taking the antibiotic. Any doctor will tell you that you should continue taking the antibiotic even after the physical symptoms of an infection have disappeared. In other words, you must finish your course of antibiotics even if the physical symptoms have disappeared. And the reasoning: you want to prevent a recurrence. 

The same principle applies to the use of a spiritual treatment. If you are treating for financial lack, you do not stop the treatment once the outward signs of financial lack have disappeared. Instead, you continue the spiritual treatment until it roots itself in your mind. The time it takes for a spiritual treatment to root itself within your mind varies from person to person. In general, your spiritual treatment has run its course when it ceases to evoke an emotional response from you.

Most doctors will give you a set of conditions or rules for taking your antibiotic: three times a day with food or drink a full glass of water after taking the pill or do not take after 9:00pm. You want to be just as regimented when applying your spiritual treatment. 1) Choose a time and space that you can commit to on a daily basis, and during which you will not be interrupted. I prefer to apply my spiritual treatment when I first wake up and before I go to sleep. 2) Be disciplined in your approach. If you are likely to forget to apply your mental medicine, develop reminders for yourself that you will adhere to. 3) Make no excuses. Only you can apply this mental medicine to your mind. No one else can do it for.

A colleague once taught me the valuable lesson of creating non-negotiables in my life. One morning, I was hiking down a hill when I bumped into her running up the same hill. She was many years older than I am. So, I was amazed that she was running uphill, while I was huffing and puffing walking downhill. I asked her how she did it. She told me that running for her was a non-negotiable. Before she did anything in her day, she put on her running shoes and workout clothes and she headed for the mountain that we were on that day. Exercising for her was just like brushing her teeth – it was a non-negotiable. She’d never think of leaving the house without brushing her teeth and she’d never think of starting her day without doing her run uphill.

I walked away from that experience changed. Now, when I want to do a thing in my life, I turn it into a non-negotiable. I encourage you to make spiritual treatments a non-negotiable in your life. You have virtual treasure in your mind. Spiritual treatments can unlock that treasure for you.

Go ahead. Give it shot and hit me back to let me know how it worked for you.

Spiritual Treatment: What Is It?

A spiritual treatment is a prayer of faith and understanding for healing, harmony, wisdom, prosperity, or any other good that you desire. The object of any treatment is to lift the thinking and feeling of the person being treated to a high spiritual consciousness through which healing is accomplished.

You can treat yourself. Spiritual treatments do not require a third party. You can take a set of affirmations (short, pithy statements of power) and verbally or silently repeat them over and over again to yourself, allowing this new thought to penetrate your consciousness.

There are countless spiritual treatments available. You may select a passage from some sacred Scripture or you may write out a few affirmations of your own. You know that you have a good spiritual treatment because it evokes an emotional response from you. The words make you feel something. If you find a particularly clever or well written spiritual treatment but it fails to make you feel something, then you would do well to discard it and find another one that is more potent.

A simple treatment for prosperity that I use often is:

Money is God’s Idea of circulation.

This idea I accept.

This idea I now accept.

This idea I now accept as the basis of all my financial affairs.

I like money.

I believe that it is God’s Activity; that it is good.

I use it with wisdom.

I release it with joy.

I send it forth without fear.

For I know that under a Divine Law, it comes back to me increased and multiplied.

Have you used spiritual treatments before? I’d like to hear from you about your experience with them. In the next entry, I’ll share some techniques for using them effectively. 

Prosperously yours,

Denise Allen

Affirmations 101: Focus On Thinking

Affirmations and denials DO NOT change conditions; they change your thoughts about conditions.

Focus on Your Thinking

If you have a new product to launch, but your product has not yet found its audience. What you say – good or bad – about your lack of sales does not change the fact that you do not have sales. You may affirm, “I have plenty of sales! I have more sales than I can imagine possible! Everyone wants to purchase my product now!” Or you may openly express your frustration: “No one is paying attention to my efforts. I will never get this product adopted by a big enough market to earn me any money.”

Neither of these statements changes the fact that you do not have sales. But, these statements DO influence what you think about your lack of sales. And what you think about your lack of sales determines the ultimate outcome. Your words – positive or negative – DO NOT change your experience; rather, they change what you think about your experience.

This distinction in the application of affirmations and denials may seem nitpicky but understanding the mechanics of how change happens is key to living and creating deliberately.

Our lives unfold from the inside out. The words you speak change your life only to the degree that those words influence your thinking. Positive words spoken to a negative condition only work when there is a corresponding change in your mind.

No change in mind = No change in experience

Nearly everyone can site one experience wherein they made an affirmation and immediately saw a result. But the permanency of that result depended upon whether the underlying thinking was adjusted. Our affirmations and denials produce temporary results when we merely work it on the outside, rather than where it really counts on the inside.

A change in mind = A change in thinking

Thoughts are things and they occupy “space” in the mind. When properly applied, affirmations and denials remove old, weak, inefficient thoughts and replace them with new and better thoughts. A mental house cleaning is even more necessary than a physical one, for the outer is always a reflection of the inner.

The most important element to grasp about affirmations and denials is that, first and foremost, they are mental processes. Because our lives are so outwardly oriented, our first instinct is to focus upon outer behavior. We develop rules – “if you speak your affirmations for 21 days, you create a new habit.” When that does not work, we say, “well, what you really needed to do was speak it 21 times per day for 21 days.” Someone else will come along and say, “No, you have to write and speak them 21 times per day for 21 days.” Yet another will say, “21 is not enough, you need 40 days because 40 is the number of spiritual completion.” And, so it goes.

It matters not whether you speak them, hum them, sing them or dance them. Words spoken without the corresponding mental attitude produce no results. Outward behavior is always secondary to inner thinking. Adjust your mental attitude first.

A change in thinking = A change in experience

Now, it is your turn. Can you see a usefulness to focusing your affirmations and denials on your thinking rather than on your outward experience? Do you think this adjustment will make the difference in how you are using affirmations and denials? What other distinctions have you observed that make the difference between affirmations and denials that work and those that do not work?

Affirmations 101: The Four Basic Denials

In her seminal book, “Lessons in Truth,” H. Emilie Cady teaches, “all systems for spiritualizing the mind include denial. By denial, we mean declaring not to be true a thing that seems true.” Denials are the way that we speak Truth to false beliefs that limit us.

What are the beliefs that have limited us? Any reason we give to explain why we do not have some desire is a belief that has limited us. The universe is an instantaneous deliverer of dreams. The buffer of time between our desire and its arrival is our mind’s ability to receive it. In the moment that we desire a thing, it is available to us.

“Denial is the first practical step toward wiping out of our minds the mistaken beliefs of a lifetime.” (Cady)

Denials uproot entrenched family beliefs and attitudes:

• When our personal goals stretch beyond the dreams our family or community can imagine for us, we need denials. In the absence of role models and encouragement from others, denials dissolve our own self-doubt.

• When we are breaking through to a new level and no one around us believes we can, we need denials. Family and friends can be our biggest cheerleaders and they can be our greatest dream-busters. Their lack of faith in our ability can be a very powerful stopper in our lives. Denials will neutralize the effects of their lack of faith.

Denials counteract longstanding cultural beliefs:

• In every culture, we maintain prejudices about men, women, people in certain ethnic groups, people from other countries, etc. Many of these beliefs have no basis in reality but we have carried them for so long – sometimes centuries – that few question their validity. We may have a personal dream that forces us to confront a longstanding cultural belief. Our first job will be to overcome that belief in ourselves.  Last night Kathryn Bigelow became the first woman to win an Academy Award® for directing. Just as Kathryn Bigelow had to overcome her beliefs about what women directors could accomplish, we must do the same for our dream. Denials help us speak Truth to longstanding beliefs that run counter to our dreams.

The only beliefs that limit you are the ones you refuse to deny!

Cady identifies four common error thoughts that nearly everyone grants great power.

Affirmations 101: Denials – Your Mental Stain Remover

Your mind is the starting point for change. Change your mind – change your life.

In Part I of Affirmations 101, we said that before you affirm what you do want, you must deny what you do not want. Affirmations and denials are tools for deliberately building your mind. Denials prep your mind for affirmations. They dissolve negative beliefs, thereby creating room in your mind for positive affirmations of abundance.

Before we explore what denials are, let us get clear on what denials are not.

• Denials are not a way of focusing on what you do not want. Using denials will not interfere with you attracting what you want. The essence of a denial is its dissolving power. Its very nature will not allow you to hold onto any condition that you do not want. Instead of focusing you upon a specific form, denials withdraw your attention from the belief behind any undesired form.

• Denials are not your excuse to live in denial. They are not a sophisticated form of sticking your head in the sand about the undesired problems in your life. To the casual observer, it may appear that denials are a way of “pretending” that a bad condition does not exist. But the skilled thinker knows that as long as you live in mental contact with any undesirable condition, you recognize its place and therefore give it license to be in your experience. Denials sever mental contact.

• Denials are not applied to physical conditions. All causes are mental. Denials are your opportunity to speak the truth to the false beliefs that stand under the experiences you no longer want. True denial targets negative beliefs, not negative things. Always deny the mental cause.

This is NOT how denials work!

Affirmations 101: Before You Affirm, Deny!

Affirmations 101 is a series of articles on the value and power of affirmations. What are affirmations? How are affirmations created? How and when should affirmations be used? What if an affirmation does not work? When is it time to choose a new affirmation?

Let’s begin!

“The Secret” did much to raise public awareness about the Law of Attraction. One of the simplest ways to express this Law is like attracts like. Its attractive power works in all realms: physical, mental, spiritual.

In the physical world, every thing produces after its own kind: Apple seeds produce apples. In turn, the apples produced contain seeds that, when planted, create more apples. The same is true on the mental level where thinking and feeling take place. Prosperous thought seeds produce prosperous thoughts. In turn, the prosperous thoughts produced contain seeds that, when planted, create more prosperous thoughts. This activity is the Law of Attraction in action.

On a personal level, if you have ever felt a rush of emotion – good or bad – then, you have experienced the Law of Attraction in action. When you feel good, your mind goes on the hunt for other things to feel good about. And, the more strongly you feel a positive emotion, the more fervently your mind searches to find other positive feelings. The same is true of feeling bad. When you feel bad, your mind goes on the hunt for other things to feel bad about.

Why should this matter to you?

It should matter because your thoughts and feelings build your world. The better your thoughts and feelings, the better your world. Happy, joyous, prosperous thoughts and feelings will create a world for you that stands in stark contrast to one built on sad, depressing, downtrodden thoughts and feelings.

Here is some exciting news! You control the direction that the Law of Attraction takes in your experience. Just as you have control over whether you plant apple or turnip seeds, you have control over whether you plant prosperous or impoverished thought seeds. As the only thinker in your experience, you decide the type of crop that will be harvested.

You control the thoughts that come in to your mind.

I Am Unlimited!

One of my favorite authors is Emmet Fox. If you have not read Fox yet, I highly suggest picking up any one of his books. If you are looking for a recommendation, I strongly advise reading “The Mental Equivalent.” It is unparalleled in its ability to motivate you to action. And, it is short!

That said, let me share with you a quote from another Fox book, “Inconsistencies Made Clear” that I just ran across. Fox writes “Those who are perplexed by the difficulties and seeming inconsistencies of life should remember that at the present time we get only a partial view of things; and that a partial view of anything never shows the thing as it really is.”

This quote stood out for me because I have a few areas in my life that I am not 100% happy with. Fox’s words remind me that the things I see in my life right now are but a picture. More importantly, it is a picture that can and will change. No matter what my life looks like right now, it is only a picture of the ideas I have held most fervently in mind. If I change the ideas I hold steadily in mind, the picture must change.

At any rate, that passage motivated me to write a few affirmations to post on the walls in my bedroom and bathroom. As I was posting them, it occurred to me that you might find them helpful as well. So, I am posting them below for you to use as you see fit. Enjoy!

• I am unlimited in my power and I have increasing health, strength, life, love, wisdom, boldness, freedom, charity and meekness now and forever.

• I am unlimited in my power. Whatever I can accomplish today is but a small reflection of what I am truly able to accomplish. There is no end to my ability – no end to my capacity to do whatever I will to do.

• I adjust my thinking to reflect the unlimited nature of my power.

• Daily, I expand my understanding of what is possible for me. I throw off old beliefs that hold me back; and, I willingly embrace new beliefs that agree with my unlimited power. The result: my world continually gets better and better.

Now, it is your turn. Will you share affirmations that work for you? How do you remind yourself that you are unlimited?